


In Memoriam

by psikitty



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Awakening Anders - Freeform, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:28:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psikitty/pseuds/psikitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders wakes up in a room he does not recognize, in a city he had never been in before, with people who say that they are his friends. </p>
<p>The last thing he remembers is trying to avoid that damned Templar the commander had let into the Vigil. Now he's in Kirkwall and years have passed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These chapters are short, so I am combining two at a time as I transfer them over from tumblr. ^_^

Anders had woken up in some strange places in his life, but he had to admit, finding himself not only in an unknown bedroom, but in a city he had never thought to step foot in and in a part of Thedas he hadn’t seen since he’d been thirteen, had to be one of the most disconcerting things he had ever been a part of.

And he’d seen a broodmother and a darkspawn have an argument, while a spirit of Justice inhabiting the corpse of a Grey Warden stood next to him.

 

Anders stood in front of the lush estate he had found himself in when he had woken up. He had been stripped down to his smalls and his clothes had been folded neatly on a chair nearby.

At least, he thought they were for him. They had been right next to him and everything had fit, even the ratty coat with the feather pauldrons. Anders couldn’t decide if they looked dashing or if they gave him the appearance of a crazed hedge mage, one that caught pigeons to eat raw and named every feather he had plucked before sewing them onto his shoulders.

Anders tucked his hair behind his ears in irritation. Whoever had cut his hair was going to find out what it felt like to have their eyebrows singed off. He separated a few strands and held them up to his eyes. Maker, the ends were ragged and the rest oily. His hair hung just below his chin, where before his blonde locks had swept past his shoulders when released from the tight ponytail he had always kept them in. He released the strands and blew at them in frustration. Even his earring was gone, its ever present weight a loss he keenly felt.

Maybe he’d been robbed and thrown on a ship. How in the Void else would he have ended up in the Free Marches of all places. Maker knew that he never would have stepped foot here voluntarily, especially not in Kirkwall.

Oh, Anders knew precisely where he was, just not how. All it had taken was a charming smile to the first woman that had passed by him and she had told him while she had giggled at his flirtations that he was in Kirkwall’s Hightown. He had apologized profusely for not knowing, since he was so bad at directions. He was sure his friend’s house was around somewhere.  With a light kiss pressed to the backs of her knuckles, he had sent her on her way.

Frankly, he was a little surprised she hadn’t run from him screaming, he looked like shit.

But if Anders knew how to do anything it was how to charm people into giving him what he wanted.

He turned around to face the house he had just come out of. Hightown seemed to be the literal and figurative definition of where he was. The mansions and estates that lined either side of the meticulously clean streets, screamed nobility and old money. He would be willing to bet the house he had just come out of was a prime example of those that surrounded it. Neatly trimmed trees were planted in just as neatly trimmed grass in sections down the middle of the street.

No one had been there when Anders had awakened or after he had dressed and grabbed the lovely looking staff from the corner, leaving the room. He had noticed that there weren’t any guards either.

So maybe not robbed and kidnapped then. Who in the void would go through all the trouble to knock Anders out for the length of time it would have taken to get him from Amaranthine to Kirkwall, and then not guard him? He had walked out easily enough.

He had never thought he would ever want to, but he needed to find a way back to the Vigil—quickly. Where once he had contemplated leaving the place, it had eventually become a home of sorts to him, the first he’d ever truly had.

Besides, Kirkwall wasn’t known for being friendly to apostates, Warden or not.

“And here I am standing out in broad daylight,” he muttered to himself. With that, he began to stride purposefully away from the house. He needed to find a bolt hole, preferably near the docks. From there, he could find a way to barter passage back to Ferelden.

He got no more than a few feet from the house when he heard someone calling him name.

“Anders! Oh, thank the Maker you’re awake. What are you doing leaving so soon?”

Anders hunched his shoulders and slowly turned. A man with dark hair and a very impressive looking beard hurried towards him, a dwarf and an elf at his side. Anders took a step back, edging away from him.

He licked lips suddenly gone dry. Granted he had met a lot of people in his life, but he could have sworn he had never seen  _them_  before. He was positive he would have remembered them. The dwarf was beardless and sporting a pelt of chest hair that was as blonde as the hair on his head. He also had a wicked looking crossbow on his back. The elf was even more memorable. He had a shock of white hair on his head, his bangs hanging in his eyes. White markings that reminded Anders of the tattoos the dales gave themselves could be seen standing out starkly on olive skin.

Plus they were three of the most attractive people Anders had ever seen. He tended not to forget something like that.

The dwarf and the human were smiling at Anders with the kind of comradely that only came from a long and intense acquaintance.

The elf on the other hand was scowling.

Anders decided to go with it. He had found no money in the pouches that were slung around his waist, only vials of lyrium and health potions. He was friendless and copperless. He had survived on less before. The trick was to use his wits and right now he needed information.

That is, unless they were responsible for his predicament. Then all bets were off he was getting the Void out of there.

“Hey… you…” Anders said lamely when they stopped in front of him. “What are  _you_  doing here?” he countered.

The smile dropped from the human’s face. He gestured to the house that Anders had woken up in. “I live here… Are you okay? You had us worried. What happened to you?”

“Me?” Anders laughed. “I’m perfectly fine. No worries.” His heart slammed in his chest, a thumping rhythm he was surprised no one else heard. “I’m going to head off now. Thanks for…” He drew out the last syllable.

“Finding you unconscious on the clinic floor after you blew the place up and dragging you back to Hawkes,” the dwarf finished. His eyebrows were drawn down in confusion. “You’re acting strange, Blondie.”

Anders snapped his fingers. “That’s right!” Clinic? Why had he been in a clinic? But that didn’t explain why they thought they knew him, or what he was doing in the Free Marches. He tapped his temple. “Must have hit my head. I’m fine now. Thanks for helping me out. I’m just going to uh… go and…” His mind scrambled, but he couldn’t think of a convincing lie.

“Well, see you later,” he settled on. With a wave of his fingers he edged around them, their eyes tracking his every movement.

“Something’s wrong with the mage,” the elf said. Under any other circumstance, Anders would have stopped and listened to that lovely voice with its cultured tones. But these were far from normal circumstances and Anders only moved faster, turning his back on them.

“I think he’s finally snapped,” the elf continued.

“Sane as always!” Anders called over his shoulder, picking up his pace. He could feel their eyes on his back, making the space between his shoulder blades itch.

“Asshole,” Anders muttered under his breath.

_Docks, docks, docks. Have to find the docks_ , he thought. He heard hurried footsteps behind him, the sound of bare feet slapping on the cobblestones. He had just enough time to grab his staff off his back when a clawed hand snatched at his arm and turned him around sharply.

“Yeah, we aren’t doing this right now,” Anders drawled into the elf’s face.  “Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to fuck with a Warden?”

“Since when do you tout your status as a Warden so freely?” the elf asked. “Most of the time you like to pretend you never were one.”

“I…” Anders shook his head. “Fuck this. I don’t owe you people anything. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the ones who took me from Amaranthine.” With a muttered word his hands burst into flames. “I usually like to shoot fools with lightening, but I’ll settle for fire. I know one of you assholes cut my hair.”

“Blondie’s gone insane,” the dwarf said in a shocked whisper that still carried to Anders.

The human held his hands up and took a cautious step forward. “Anders, I don’t know what’s happened to you, but we aren’t your enemy. Come back into the house and we can figure this out.”

“You want me to come back into a house with people I don’t know, just on your say so that you aren’t my enemy?” Anders laughed bitterly. “Yeah, no… I’m not above killing the three of you in the street.”

“That has always been evident,” the elf said dryly.

“And you,” Anders snapped. “Get your hand off of me. You’re handsome, but I like to have at least a nodding acquaintance with people before they touch me. So unless you’re planning on fucking me into a mattress, let go.”

The elf yanked his hand back as if burned. His lips curled in disgust, as if Anders had become something foul that could be found under a broodmother’s backside.

“Hey!” Anders shot, offended. “Don’t look so disgusted. I’m not a bad looking fellow… normally…”

Then he did what he did best, the thing that had made him famous in the Tower, what he had thought he had finally been able to stop doing once he had joined the Grey Wardens and helped save Amaranthine from destruction.

He turned and ran.

**

The Hanged Man was everything that Anders had thought it would be—sticky floors, people of dubious intent, and a tavern owner that didn’t blink twice when he entered the place.

He had made his way to Lowtown, throwing off his pursuers with the genius plan of running as fast as he could and ducking in and out of alleys. He was in Kirkwall, there had been no way he was going to have the huge display of magic it would have taken to incinerate his probable captors. The Templars would have been on him before he could have finished saying ‘apostate’.

 

Anders had needed somewhere to hide and get information and the Hanged Man looked like his kind of place. No one had spoken to him when he had entered, but he had felt eyes watching him with predatory speculation. He had chosen a table in the corner with a good view of the door and the rest of the main room. Anders loosened the staff on his back just enough for easy access if he needed it and evaluated his options.

He had never been obliged to make a sea crossing on his own before. The only time had been when he’d been young and sent to Ferelden. He had been shifted onto someone else’s shoulders, an unwanted burden that had caused more trouble than he had been worth.

Anders hadn’t cared. Being passed off onto other people was a theme in his life. His father had done it when he had turned Anders into the Templars.  As far as he had been concerned, the further away from the Anderfels the better.

So that left him in a bit of a quandary. He had no coin, only his skills as a healer. He had bartered those skills before, but any kind of ship’s captain that would take an apostate out of Kirkwall, might not be the most trustworthy of souls. Still, Anders had little choice at this point. He had to get back to the Vigil.

He knew there was a Warden keep in the Free Marches, but wasn’t sure where. If worse came to worse, he could make his way to them.

The answer to his problems took a seat across from him at his table.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Anders.”

Anders grinned at Isabela. He raked his eyes up and down her, taking in the way her tightly corseted body and white skirt that stopped just short at her thighs and split up the sides revealed far more than it covered. She had a pair of wicked looking daggers strapped to her back and a blue bandana trimmed in gold held back her dark hair.

“Isabela!” His grin widened. “So lovely to see a friendly face in here. Please tell me that you have a ship.”

She frowned, her dark eyes flashing in annoyance. “You know I don’t have a ship. Why would you even ask me that?”

“Uh… Because this is the first time I’ve seen you in years and you’d had a ship when last I had…” he drew out slowly. “It’s not like I keep up on what you’ve been doing.”

“The last time you saw me was a few days ago when you asked to borrow one of my daggers. Which you’re lucky wasn’t damaged when you blew yourself up.”

“No I…” A pit opened up in his stomach, one that yawned wide and threatened to swallow him whole. “I last saw you before the Blight in Ferelden,” he replied in a strangled whisper. The room swam before his eyes and he gripped the edge of the table tightly in his hands, his nails digging into the scarred and stained wood. “What’s going on here…” It was spoken as less a question to her and more one for himself.

Ever since he had woken up in a strange bedchamber, everything had been turned on its head. His hair was different, his clothes, his earring missing. He was in the Free Marches and people who he did not recognize, spoke to him as if they had known him for years. Now Isabela claimed that she had spoken to him only a few days before hand.

“What year is it?” he demanded. He leaned forward, the table creaking ominously. “Tell me what year it is!”

When she told him, Anders heard nothing she said after that, the blood roared in his ears and drowned out all other sound. Her mouth moved, he could see it, but nothing that she said made sense.

Years… Years had gone by since he last remembered anything. Years in which he had gone to the Free Marches, cut his hair, and made new friends. If Anders had been a praying man, he would have beseeched the Maker right there to help him. But he had lost his faith long ago and the Maker was not there to hear him.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he glanced up.

“Come on,” Isabela said. “Let’s go to my room. I’ll send a message for Hawke.”

Hawke…  The man with the beard. The one whose house Anders had woken up in. What choice did he have at this point? He had lost years and he needed to find out why.

**

“So what you’re telling me,” Anders said incredulously, “is that I left the Wardens, came to Kirkwall, and now I free mages from the Circle?” He held up a finger as if he just remembered something. “Oh… Oh! I also opened up a free clinic in the slums where I sleep in dirt and deprivation. All of those things sound completely like what I would do. I’m just that heroic and selfless.”

“I don’t know about heroic,” the dwarf—Varric—muttered.

“Or selfless,” Fenris concurred.

“Oo,” Anders cooed at Fenris. “I bet you and I are the best of friends. I can already tell we stay up late at night and spill our deepest secrets to each other.”

Fenris stiffened, but Hawke interjected before he could get a retort in. “You don’t remember any of this? Not coming to Kirkwall? Not meeting any of us? Nothing?”

“You don’t remember that you’re an abomination?” Fenris’ lips curled in a cruel smile.

“Excuse me?” Anders whirled around on Fenris in the middle of Isabela’s suite. “I might have done a lot of stupid shit in my life, but making deals with demons isn’t one of them.”

“Fernis,” Hawke warned, “don’t—“

“But you always said Justice wasn’t a demon,” Fenris pushed on. “That you had him under control.”

“What in the Void does Justice have to do with…” Anders trailed off. He turned and sat down heavily on an overstuffed chair that had seen better days. “Someone tell me that this is a joke. The commander put you up to this, didn’t he? He’s getting back at me for filling the main hall at the Vigil with cats. In my defense he was insisting that Pounce was a distraction. He needed to know that a single cat wasn’t a distraction, but a bunch of them were. I mean, there is nothing on Thedas that would ever compel me to allow Justice to… I would never…”

 He shook his finger at them. “See, now you’ve tipped your hand. You should’ve just stuck with the basics. Don’t feel too bad about it. As far as pranks go, this wasn’t half bad. Dragging me all the way to the Free Marches. Fess up, how much did Cousland pay you?”

“Blondie,” Varric started, “you need to listen to us and—“

“Enough talk,” Fenris growled. He strode over to Anders and placed both hands on either side of him, gripping the armrests tightly in his fists. He leaned close, until their noses were almost touching, forcing Anders to look at him.

“We can just show him and be done with it.”  Fenris’ tattoos flared to life, an iridescent blue that bathed Anders in their glow. He pulled his hand back and drove it towards the mage’s chest.

“What in the Void are you?” Anders asked in a choked whisper. He had seen many strange things in his life—talking darkspawn, creatures that hatched from eggs and devoured anything in their path, tears in the Veil that had encompassed a whole town. But he had never seen anything like Fenris, his tattoos shining like veins of lyrium, with a blue fire that did not burn.  

“They’re made out of lyrium,” Anders gasped. His thoughts ran rapid-fire, taking only a few heartbeats before Fenris’ clawed fingertips met his chest. Instead of the sharp pain he had been expecting, a tearing of his flesh and bone, there was only the sickening sensation of something pushing right through him, felt, but not felt.

Fenris got only as far as his third knuckles before he froze, his eyes widening in the first showing of emotion that Anders had seen other than distain. “You did it…” Fenris whispered. “I didn’t believe you when you said you would…” He yanked his hand free and took a few stumbling steps away from Anders. He stared at the mage as if he had never seen him before, as if Anders was some new creature that didn’t quite fit into what Fenris knew of the world.

Anders clutched at his chest with trembling hands, gasping. “You tried to kill me!” he accused. Maker, it still felt like Fenris’ hand was inside him, his skin crawling in horror. “What was the supposed to show me!”

Ignoring him, Fenris began to pace the room, his eyes never leaving Anders for more than a second. “I don’t understand,” he murmured.

“I think you knew more than you were letting on, elf,” Varric said.

Fenris whirled around on him. “How was I supposed to know to take him seriously? The mage likes to hear himself talk and he has never proven to be the most trustworthy.”

Trustworthy…

Pain sliced through Anders’ head and he groaned, clutching at his temples.

_Heated words ringing in his ears, accusations thrown back and forth. It wasn’t what was being said, but the intent behind them. Words were meaningless, actions were what mattered._

_Liar…_

_Prove it…_

_Untrustworthy…_

_Prove it…_

_Prove what you say is true…_

_Or don’t you dare touch me again._

Anders heard himself screaming, but it seemed far away, as if the horrible sound were coming from another.

When the darkness took him, he sank into it gratefully.


	2. Chapter 2

There were times when Fenris had been jealous of the way Hawke trusted people. It wasn’t the blind faith that Merrill sometimes exhibited, but a willingness to believe in what another said that Fenris wished he had. What memories he had, had shown him time and time again that trust was something that people invariably broke. It was a weakness that could be exploited and he had never understood why people opened themselves up and allowed another in so deeply. Why would they even take the chance? Hawke would have told him, that it was what life was about, taking chances on yourself and others.

Hawke had been the first person he had trusted in a long time.

 

He had trusted the Fog Warriors, as they had believed in him. But Fenris had been the one to break faith with them, using their trust of him against them as he slaughtered his way through their encampment on his master’s orders.

So three weeks ago when Anders had kissed him, pressing Fenris against the torn and faded wallpaper in the elf’s mansion, his body hard and unyielding, Fenris had assumed it was some trick.

When Anders had whispered in a ragged voice against Fenris’ kiss-swollen lips that he loved him, Fenris had become angry.

He had called Anders a liar, sneering that he would never be with an abomination. He had told Anders that he couldn’t be trusted, that Fenris never knew if it was Justice speaking or Anders, their personalities blending more and more throughout the years. He had said that he was done with being the plaything of power hungry mages.

Fenris had seen the shift in Anders’ eyes, the subtle change to determination.

It was then that Anders had told Fenris that he would prove that he was more than an abomination, more than Vengeance.

_“If what it takes to be whole again, and for you to feel a fraction for me what I feel for you, is to send Justice home where he belongs, then I’ll do it.”_

_“Prove it, or never touch me again.”_

Fenris paced the short length of Isabela’s room. Anders lived and breathed mage freedom. How many times had he argued with Fenris about it over the years—argued with them all? Fenris refused to believe that Anders had done this for him. People didn’t do things like that, not in Fenris’ experience.

Hawke’s voice brought him out of his reverie. “So he didn’t tell you how he was going to do it, just that he was?”

Stopping next to Isabela’s bed to glance at Anders, Fenris shook his head. “No… I thought he was just telling me what I wanted to hear. I doubt I would have understood even if I had bothered to ask.” He watched the slow rise and fall of Anders’ chest, the way his face had relaxed in sleep, his lips slightly parted, his forehead smoothed out. He looked so much younger when he was asleep, the weight of what he was, and what he had done, gone. Had Anders taken a look at himself in a mirror? Had he seen how he much he had aged in a few short years, life carving lines of tension into him?

“And why would he tell you of all people?” Isabela asked. “Why not Hawke?” Her gaze was a little too sharp for Fenris’ liking. He had told them just enough of what Anders had said without revealing the part that Fenris had played in what had happened to the mage.

“Why does he do anything?” Fenris snapped.

“It doesn’t matter as much as the how,” Hawke interjected. “We need to get him back to the clinic and see if he can piece together what happened. Are you sure Justice is gone?”

Fenris shrugged. “He didn’t defend Anders like he normally would. We’ve all seen how Justice comes out when he feels Anders is threatened.”

“Maybe he doesn’t see you as a threat,” Varric mused. “We should get him around some Templars.”

Fenris’ lips curled in disgust. “So we put Templars in danger just to see if Justice will slaughter them?”

“Hold on,” Hawke held his hands up. “We aren’t doing anything until we know what happened. If it… if it turns out that Anders was successful in separating Justice, then we can—“

“Let him go back to Ferelden like he wants,” Isabela finished. The others turned to stare at her. “What? If he wants to go back to the Wardens then let him. We can’t hold him here.” She gave Fenris a pointed look. “He wouldn’t be a danger anymore, now would he?”

Fenris glanced away, his gaze landing on Anders once more. “No… Not in the way he once was.”

**

Anders picked his way through the partially collapsed room that had once held his clinic—or so he’d been told. Half of the ceiling had caved in, plaster, stone, and snapped beams littering the ground, the acrid smell of smoke still in the air.

“I did not live here.” Anders held out his arms to encompass the large room. “Seriously? I had a friend that lived in a mansion and I lived here?”

“I tried to get you to come and stay with me, but you refused. You said that you had to stay where you were needed.” Hawke picked up a fallen beam and moved it over to the side with a grunt.

“Because I was incapable of walking here in the morning?” Anders turned slowly in the center of the room. “What in the Void was I thinking? You guys were right, I’m  _really_  not this selfless.”

As much as Anders didn’t want to trigger another attack like the one that had brought him down in Isabela’s room, he was hoping for something—anything—that would remind him of what he had once been.  None of this sounded like him—the clinic, the rebellion, leaving the one place where he had finally belonged.  He had been scribbling a manifesto for Maker’s sake. A manifesto! He had never wanted anything to do with mage politics, leaving that for other, worthier people. The Circles could campaign and argue with the Templars all they wanted. Anders had only ever needed his freedom and someone pretty at his side. Granted, the Wardens had thrown a kink in his plans, but he was pragmatic enough to know that with them, it was as close to freedom as he was ever going to get.

Why would he have ever left that?

There was still a small voice whispering to him that he was being lied to, but Anders didn’t have much choice. Without his memories and a way to get back to Amaranthine, he was stuck for the time being.

With a sigh, Anders began to help with clearing away some of the debris. As he worked, he thought back to the memory that had crashed into his mind with all the finesse of a rampaging ogre, taking him down into darkness.

He had been arguing with someone, but the words had made no sense. It was like a dream that had seemed so vivid at the time, but when one woke up there was only a hazy feeling that was beyond description.

Truth be told, Anders was frightened. He felt adrift in a strange world where no one could be trusted. The last time he had felt this way was when he had been hauled away by the Templars from his mother’s arms. He hadn’t cared if he had lived or died, so he had lashed out for weeks at the Templars, earning only scorn and laughter for his attempts.

But Anders was older now, not some brash youth who took his anger out on the world, and he very much cared if he lived.

**

It took them hours to clear most of the rubble away.

It took them only seconds to realize they had found what they were looking for.

“What  _is_  that?” Varric whispered.

“Blood magic,” Fenris answered. He shot Anders a pointed look.

There was little doubt that the circle inscribed with sigils and runes had been drawn with blood. Some of it had smeared and flaked away, but enough of it was intact.

Anders crouched down next to it, his hand hovering over an intricately drawn symbol. “This is insane.” His voice came out rougher than he’d intended. “Where did I learn to do something like this?”  He pointed to one side of the circle. “There’s old Arcanum over there. And over here it…” he tilted his head to the side. “That’s elvish.”

“There’s the Blade of Mercy of Andraste.” Hawke nodded near his feet.

“And the Sun of the Maker,” Fenris added. “I also see the writing of the Qun…”

“Old dwarven over here.” Varric shook his head in wonder. “A lot of dwarven trade agreements go back centuries. I’d know it anywhere.”

“Get back,” Andes rasped.

“What’re you going to do, Blondie,” Varric asked even as he shuffled back from the circle, Hawke and Fenris following suit.

“I’m going to find out what this thing does and if I was the one to do it.” With less than a thought, Anders touched his connection to the Fade.

“Mage, this isn’t a good idea,” Fenris called.

“Nonsense,” Anders quipped. “All of my ideas are good ones. Just some of them are less good than others.” He slapped his palm down onto the circle, sending his will through it.

Nothing happened.

Anders frowned. “The circle is broken, but I was hoping at least—“

When the tear happened it was more felt than seen, the fabric of reality ripping open, sending vibrations through Anders and his connection to the Fade. Anders stared in horror towards the center of the circle. It was as if the waking world had a curtain over it and unseen hands had parted it slightly, giving a view of what was beyond.

Anders yanked his hand back, the curtain falling shut. He landed on his ass and scrambled backwards, kicking up dust as he went. “Did you…”

Varric cleared his throat. “Yeah… we saw it, Blondie.”

“That was my magic,” Anders sputtered. “I could feel it. My blood, my magic, my… What in the Void did I do?”

“You tore open the Veil,” Fenris growled. “That’s what you did.”

**

Anders didn’t consider himself to be the kind of man who needed to pace when he was agitated, but he sure as shit was pacing now. Ten steps to the right, turn, ten steps to the left, turn. His staff bounced against his backside with each striding step, a metronome keeping time.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered more to himself. “Let’s just back up here.” The small hope that he’d had that this was all some sort of misunderstanding had been crushed, torn as sure as the Veil. He couldn’t deny that it had been  _his_  blood,  _his_  magic that had been meticulously inscribed on the hard packed dirt floor. A mage might not be able to read magic as a signature, but he could damn well tell if it was his own power that had been used.

“You tore open the Veil,” Fenris said dryly.

 

Eight, nine, ten, and turn. “Tore is such an ugly word. I prefer to think that what I accomplished had a bit more precision than that.”

“That’s just semantics,” Fenris pointed out none too gently. “The end result is still the same. You used blood magic and—“

Anders waved him away, brushing his words off as if they were annoying, insignificant flys. “I need to know what I was saying or doing before this… before I…”

“Used blood magic,” Fenris repeated.

Anders paused in his pacing to level gaze at him. “Yes, yes. I used blood magic. I’m going to the Void now. Oh, woe is me. How will I ever look at myself in the mirror ever again?” A trick that Anders had learned long ago was to tell enough of the truth to give credence to the lie. He had prided himself on the fact that he had been able to avoid going the way of so many apostates before him. He kept away from blood magic and he had turned down numerous demons over the years. It was a slippery slope, one that he didn’t have the hubris to think he ever could control. No one could control a demon—ever. They would win in the end, using their host for their own gains.

Why take the chance?

But it seems he had taken the chance. Not only had be let Justice into him, but he had worked blood magic in order to get himself free.

He had become what he had always despised—a weak mage who had been driven to desperation.

But he would be damned if he told that asshole of an elf any of it.

“Can we move on from that?” Anders continued. “Isabela said that I had borrowed one of her daggers. Did I ask for anything from anyone else?”  
  
Hawke frowned. “No. Isabela was the last to see you before the explosion.”

“Why would you have needed her dagger?” Varric scratched at his chin. “Seems pretty specific. Why not get one of your own?”

That was a good question and it was one that Anders didn’t know the answer to. “I have no clue. This,” he waved at the circle, “should be beyond my capabilities.” He wiggled his fingers. “I heal people and occasionally throw fireballs at them. I don’t… make up spells from whole cloth.”  
  


“How do you know you created the spell?” Hawke asked.

Anders rolled his eyes. “Because I’ve never heard of a spell like this before.  The Qun have their own fucked up way of dealing with mages that they never talk about. The dwarves don’t do magic at all and the dalish wouldn’t share with a  _shemlen_. Not to mention symbols of Andraste and old Arcanum? This is some weird compilation of a lot of different spells all,” he waved his hands again, “mashed together and bound in blood. I can’t even look at it, it’s so fucking wrong.

“It’s unstable. You can see the desperation in the lines, in the way the sigils and runes were created and…” He trailed off when he realized what he was saying, sucking in a slow breath through his nose.

“You wanted to separate from Justice,” Hawke said gently.

Anders hated the pity he heard in the other man’s voice. It sliced through him, laying him open for…

His eyes jerked down to his chest. “Quick, I need some help here.” He tore off his coat and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor. No one moved when his hands went to his quilted jerkin and began undoing the straps.

“Uh… Are you stripping for us, Blondie?” Varric eyed him warily, as if he was revising his earlier statement that Anders had lost his mind.

“Tears in the Veil happen in places where there has been much suffering.” The jerkin joined his coat and he whipped his robes over his head. “This is a clinic, right? Suffering sure, but healing. Wouldn’t work.”

“’This is a sanctum of healing and salvation’,” Hawke murmured.

“Exactly,” Anders said. “And I couldn’t just do this anywhere. This is my clinic, right? It’s safe here. No interruptions, no bystanders when it’s empty.” He lifted a foot and caught it in his hands, yanking on his boot. He hopped in the dirt and almost stumbled when his boot pulled free.

“Why are you undressing, mage?” Fenris had jerked his eyes away and was staring at the floor, as if by will alone he could force it to open and swallow Anders.

“I used a dagger. Not just any dagger, but one of Isabela’s. I’m guessing she hasn’t changed much and that a lot of people have died pretty painfully at the end of it.” The second boot joined the first. “That’s the suffering. Don’t you see?”

Fenris of all people was the first to understand. His head jerked up, realization dawning in his eyes. “You said the blood was yours. The suffering on the dagger would not have been enough. I have seen magisters make tears in the Veil and what was required was…” He swallowed heavily. “I once watched a boy be flayed alive in order to…”

**

No… Anders couldn’t have. But Fenris knew that he had. It took several strides to make it to Anders, footsteps in which he didn’t hesitate once. His heart hammered in his chest, a frantic staccato that bordered on painful.

How could Anders have done it? Not for Fenris, never that. Hawke and the others might fight for Fenris out of friendship. But to bleed, to inflict pain on himself because Anders thought himself in love was too unbelievable. People didn’t do things like that for him.

He wasn’t worth it.

Anders’ hands had gone to the laces of his breeches. Neither one of them spoke a word when the mage shucked them, stepping out of the puddle of faded fabric. Fenris was the first to break eye contact, glancing down, searching for something he hadn’t seen in the smooth, unblemished skin of the mage’s chest.

He found it immediately.

Fenris closed his eyes, giving himself a thudding heartbeat to calm his chaotic thoughts before opening them again. His smalls covered part of it, but Fenris could still see the angry pink scar that peeked out from the edge of the worn linen. It was low on Anders’ hip, easily missed by Hawke when he had undressed Anders and put him into his bed, his smallclothes covering it.

Hooking a claw into Anders’ smalls, Fenris slowly pulled down, revealing more of the twisting scar.

“If I had known you wanted to get into my smalls, I would have done this sooner,” Anders quipped, breaking the moment.

Fenris scowled at him. “Can’t you take anything seriously?” He could feel the tips of his ears heating and spared a moment to thank the Maker he wasn’t fair.

“A handsome elf pulling my smalls from me? I take that very seriously.” Anders flashed him a grin and glanced down. The smile fell away. “What in the Void is that?”

He twisted and Fenris let go, backing away from him. Anders pulled down his smalls to get a better look, tight blonde curls peeks out and Fenris’ eyes snapped to Anders’ face. His fingers curled in on themselves as he fought the urge to touch.

Anders lacked the dense muscles that Hawke had. What he had instead was lean, most of which were on his arms and upper chest from years of wielding a staff. His nipples were a pale pink and puckered from the cool air of the clinic. Fenris kept his face as neutral as possible, a trick he had learned from his time as a slave.

“Too bad Isabela isn’t here,” Hawke joked. “She would’ve loved this.”

Fenris bit the inside of his cheek to keep a retort off his lips. He wanted to tell Hake that Isabela wasn’t going anywhere near Anders. He wanted to push them all from the room, taking the almost nude Anders from Hawke and Varric’s sight. He forced the unreasonable anger back, tasting the coppery tang of blood on his tongue.

“I think she would have skinned me,” Anders replied. “Using her dagger to…” He sighed and turned to the side, giving them all a good look at his hip. “Can someone explain to me what this looks like? I can’t see it very well.”

“It looks like shit, Blondie. Why didn’t you heal yourself?” Varric walked over to him and squinted at the mass of scar tissue.

“Magic.” Anders pulled down more of his smalls and Fenris bit harder on the inside of his cheek. “Some wounds inflicted by magic don’t heal very well. From what I can see this was the best I could do.”

“I don’t know what this is. Here…” Varric knelt down on the floor and began drawing in the dirt, copying the intricate lines of the scarring. When he was done he pushed to his feet and dusted his breeches off.

Anders glanced down at it and tilted his head from side to side, a frown on his face. “It’s ancient Arcanum. It says… ‘Freedom’.” He glanced up sharply at them. “I didn’t use blood magic. At least, not with a demon’s aid. You said that justice and I were one? Then it had to be  _my_  blood,  _my_  body,  _my_  pain to release him back into the Fade.” He pointed at the circle. “And I had to tear open the Veil to do it.”

“And he took your memories with him,” Hawke finished.

“That begs the question,” Fenris said carefully. “What did you take from him?”


	3. Chapter 3

_“What did you take from him?”_

Six words that were rife with meaning, containing questions and answers in their syllables. Anders knew it made sense. He logically grasped that with magic, especially the kind of high magic that he had apparently done, there was going to be a price, a give and take to balance the scales of what he had woven using spells so intricate that he still couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. In the years since he had come to Kirkwall, he had apparently learned how to create spells that were now out of his depth.

 

He might not know exactly what he had done to cast the ritual that had separated he and Justice, but he damn well knew how to destroy it, to wipe out all traces that anything had happened other than an unfortunate explosion.

All he needed to do was wipe away the circle and unweave the tendrils of magic that still clung to it.

It was as simple as that. The tear in the Veil would still be there, but it would remain nothing more than a faded spot in the fabric, worn down and thin.

None of them spoke as they watched him work. He didn’t blame them. What could they say? They didn’t know him anymore than he had an understanding of who they were. They had been friends with an Anders that could cast spells that opened the Veil and flung a spirit back into it. They knew an Anders who had let Justice inside him, someone who had opened a clinic to cater to the poor of Kirkwall.

They didn’t know the Anders that had joined the Grey Wardens in order to escape a grisly death, his body rotting as it swung from a forgotten tree, food for the carrion birds. They didn’t know the Anders that had finally found a home with the Wardens, who had risked his life to aid the Warden-Commander in a cause bigger than all of them, who had done the right thing by waltzing into a pit filled with things born of a monstrous mother. The one who had made peace with the fact he would spend the rest of his life in the Vigil, to eventually wake up from one nightmare too many and wander one last time into the Deep Roads.

They had been friends with an Anders who had walked away from all of that. Who had left not only Ferelden behind him, but everything he had made for himself. Anders had had respect with the Wardens. He’d had the knowledge that he was in a place where he finally belonged, with a group of people who were just as screwed up as he was, brought together under the command of one man who had been crazier than all of them.

The Grey Wardens of Vigils Keep were a motley group of outcasts that’d had nowhere to go and no one that would take them in even if they did. They had fought together, laughed together, cried together, and made a home together.

Anders would never have left that.

He apparently had.

When the last of the spell had been cleared away, Anders brushed his hands together. “Okay, so apparently I’m insane and like to attempt dangerous rituals.” He absently rubbed at his hip where twisted scars marred the skin. “I just…” he swallowed heavily. “Tell me exactly what I said when I told you I was going to do this.” He gave Fenris an expectant look. “I need to know why I decided to do this now and not years ago. Did I just not have the right spell or combination of spells? Was I becoming… dangerous?”

Fenris glanced away from him, unable or unwilling to meet his eyes. “You did not tell me how you were going to do it,” he hedged.

“But you  _do_  know why,” Anders pressed. “Look, I’m really good at pretending certain things aren’t happening in the world or in my life, but I can’t ignore this. Do you know what it’s like to wake up and not know where you are or if you can trust the people you’re with? If it wasn’t for Isabela I’d be on the next ship to Ferelden right now. She’s the only person I know here, and to be honest, I only know her because I slept with her years ago. I’m not the most trusting of souls and I’m putting a lot of faith in you guys right now. So  _fucking_  tell me what I said.”

He knew was he was getting hysterical, but he didn’t care. He thought that he could be forgiven under the circumstance.

“I know what that’s like,” Fenris hissed. His eyes snapped up to meet Anders’, full of green fire. “I had my memories stripped from me in an act of magic. I know the need to find what had been lost, to know who you were. I—“ He cut himself off on a growl.

Fenris closed his eyes and sighed in resignation. “If you wish to know what was said, then come to my mansion.” He opened his eyes once more. “And come alone.”

“You said you didn’t know,” Hawke accused. “Fenris, this isn’t the time for secrets.”

“What would you have me do, Hawke?” Fenris’ mouth set in stubborn lines. “This is between him and me. It’s not for public consumption. The why of it only matters to him. You know the how of what was done now.”

The two men stared at each other, a battle of wills. Anders was getting the impression this wasn’t the first time this had happened. He was out of his depth. There was a group dynamic that he had once been a part of, but now he felt as if he were in the middle of a crowd where everyone was whispering and he could only catch the surface meaning, but not the whole story. Anders had never considered himself a nosy person. What people did with their lives were none of his concern. Unless it involved him directly, he preferred to leave well enough alone. Poking your nose where it didn’t belong only lead to attention, and although Anders liked attention, he didn’t like the kind that came with interfering. He had learned that the hard way from his father. Attention from the old man only meant pain. The Templars had reinforced that. He couldn’t say that he hadn’t made himself notorious in the Tower with his escapades, but he damn well hadn’t asked for the notoriety.

The only time he had put himself out there, had been during one of his escapes. He’d had a run in with a Bann who had been in a spot of trouble. Anders had helped the man and in return he’d been gifted a very fine pendant.

He’d been lucky the man hadn’t clapped him in irons and sent him back to the Circle.

The Grey Wardens had taught him a different way of seeing things. Being known for something other than being a screw up had been heady. But while he had begun to actually like the small bit of infamy he had gained with the Wardens, Anders still had a policy of not asking personal questions.

How much had he shared with these people? As much as he had opened up to the commander and his fellow Wardens? By the time his memories had stopped, Anders had bared himself as much as he ever had. The Grey Wardens had a tendency to lull people—or at least the commander did. Anders had found himself telling the commander more about his life than he ever had anyone else.

The strange, and slightly frightening, part about it was that it had been so easy. He had wanted to share the bits of himself that he had held onto as tightly as he had held onto his mother’s pillow.

Anders gasped, breaking the silent standoff between Hawke and Fenris. “My things. Are my things still here?”

“We got all of your personal possessions we could find out.” Varric nodded towards Hawke. “It’s all at Hawke’s place.”

“I would’ve had a pillow,” Anders said in a rush. “It’d been white once, but it’s faded to yellow. There’s embroidery on it with—“

“Your mother’s pillow is in a trunk,” Hawke said. “I made sure we got that out. I know how much you would have wanted that saved from looters.”

Anders’ breath caught in his throat. He had  _told_  them. He had told them about his mother’s pillow. They knew enough to understand how much it meant to him. Not even the commander knew about the pillow. Isabela’s assurances, their instance in helping him, none of those things had quite convinced Anders that he could trust them, not completely.

Here he had evidence that at one time, he had thought highly enough of them to give one of the biggest pieces of himself over, proof of his own making.

Anders felt dizzy with the realization. It was as if he had been underwater slowly sinking into the depths and had seen the lifeline he had left for himself, breaking the surface to gasp in that first lungful of life.

It didn’t matter if they had known an Anders that was gone now. That Anders had been a façade, just like the one he was now, a mask he had created to conceal the man he was beneath, the kind of man who still missed the warmth of his mother’s embrace and had kept her pillow all these years.

They knew  _him_.

He did not know them.

“You okay, Blondie?” Varric asked. “Maybe you should sit down. You’re looking a bit green around the edges.”

Anders looked at them, really looked at them—the dwarf with concern in his eyes, the human who scratched at his neatly trimmed beard as if he needed to do something, a man of action whose mind and body hated that he had no answers for Anders.

Then there was the elf.

Fenris’ body screamed to stay away, his arms folded across his chest, the way he seemed to hunch in on himself, as if he were expecting a blow to come, his eyes defiant, daring anyone to say anything.

This was the one that Anders had trusted enough to tell him his reasons why he had risked his sanity and his soul in order to send Justice home. This was the one that Anders had confided to—this prickly elf with the sharp tongue.

“We…” Anders began as he stared at Fenris, scrutinizing the elf. “I wouldn’t have trusted just anyone. You and I were…” He didn’t know where he was going with this trail of thought. A half formed idea was sinking its claws into him, not quite seen, but definitely felt.

Fenris’ eyes widened imperceptibly and the elf shot a quick glance at Varric and Hawke. Several things clicked into place.

“I think you and I need to talk,” Anders finally settled on. “Lead the way, mighty warrior.”

**

Fenris paced the length of the room he had claimed as his bedchamber. The faded and torn rug beneath his bare feet still bore the scorch marks of a rage demon. A log popped in the fireplace, one of the few concessions to comfort that Fenris had made. Except for two chairs cozily situated in front of the fire, and the bedframe that held a new mattress, Fenris hadn’t made any changes to the mansion that he squatted in, waiting for the day that his former master would appear.

 

That time had come and gone, but Fenris yet still lived in the ruins of a great house. Hawke had offered to let him stay at his place, but Fenris had refused. It was strange to think that he didn’t have to look over his shoulder anymore, that the chains of his slavery were finally gone, struck from his throat the day he had crushed Danarius’ heart in his hand.

Slavery under Danarius was all that Fenris had known for most of his remembered life. He had lived and breathed his master, Danarius his world and Fenris one of the twin moons, circling him endlessly, caught in the magister’s grip.

The few times he had given thought to what it would be like when he was finally free, the idea had frightened him, sending his thoughts retreating to ponder on revenge. His anger—his hate—had been easier to contend with. But in the moment Danarius had fallen lifeless to the grimy floor of the Hanged Man, Fenris had known a terrible truth.

It hadn’t mattered how far he had fled from his former master, Danarius still had controlled him. Fenris didn’t form attachments easily. He had lived in squalor—was still living in it—because Danarius’ touch had once been there. Almost every word he had spoken, every thought he’d had, every action he’d taken was in service to his rage. Fenris had been free in Kirkwall from Danarius for years, not to mention the years before he had arrived in the Free Marches. What had he done with his life other than to wait like a good pet for his master to come and fetch him?

Anders’ words to him of want and need had only parted the veil over his life that Fenris had just come to realize had been there all along. His shackles might be gone, but they had cut deep, creating calluses, scars, and open wounds that might not ever be healed. Killing Danarius had only shown Fenris how much of a slave he still was.

He didn’t know how to be free.

He didn’t know how to want for something that didn’t involve his former life in Tevinter.

He had gone searching for a way to give meaning to his life, to have something greater than himself, to be his own man. In his search, he had set off a series of events that he hadn’t anticipated. The guilt ate at Fenris, the knowledge that it was his doing that Darktown no longer had a clinic, that Hawke and the others might lose a friend in Anders.

That he had forced Anders into a corner.

Fenris’ steps faltered when he heard one of the many loose and rotten boards on the stairs creak. One day they would finally give way, plunging whoever was unfortunate to step on the decaying wood to the basement below. Fenris knew that he was going to eventually have to make a choice—either stay in the dilapidated mansion where the bones of Danarius’ servants still dwelled, and where the few people that still spoke to him would fear to come in case they were injured, or leave and move on to a place where his friends could be welcomed openly without having to sneak over in the dead of night in case they were seen entering.

The parallels to his inner turmoil were not lost on him.

Fenris flexed his bare hands as he watched Anders waltz into the room, the blonde’s eyes taking in his surroundings—the torn wallpaper, the boarded up windows, and the broken wine bottles piled in one corner of the room. Fenris’ armor was neatly laid out on top of a small chest where he kept his few possessions, his sword propped against it. Fenris wore only his tunic and the breeches that hugged his legs, the dark fabric thin around his knees.

If he was going to bare himself to Anders, then he needed to physically do it as well, peeling off his literal and figurative armor.

Anders skirted around one of the chairs near the fire, drew his staff from his back, and plopped down on the chair, the worn wood creaking in protest as the sudden weight. He balanced the staff on his knees and arched an eyebrow at Fenris. “Nice place you have here. Could do with some cleaning, though. Might I suggest doing that with fire? Lots of fire. Enough to burn the place down.”

“Says the man who was sleeping in the sewer known as Darktown,” Fenris replied idly.

The mage laughed. “Well now… There’s not much I can say to that is there?” He rolled his staff absently back and forth over the top of his thighs. He slapped his palms down on his staff and glanced up sharply at Fenris. “So are we going to do this? Or should we continue to trade barbs? I’ve got to tell you, Fenris, when I come to a handsome stranger’s abandoned mansion alone, it’s usually because I’m up to no good—or he is. Now I seem to have trusted Hawke at some point in my life, and he trusts you, so here I am…”

Fenris realized that Anders’ apparent idle manner was only for show. He had drawn his staff and had it in his grasp. His feet were planted firmly on the floor, all the easier to swiftly get to his feet if he needed to, despite his indolent posture in the chair.

“Do you think I’m going to try and hurt you, Anders?” Fenris asked. He sank down on the chair next to the mage. “You should know that the idea has crossed my mind more than once since I met you.”

Anders flashed him a quick smile, but didn’t release his hold on the staff. “I’m more worried about people that haven’t thought of murdering me at least once.” He glanced at Fenris from under his lashes. “Or fucking me…”

Sucking in a sharp breath through his nose, Fenris forced himself to meet Anders’ eyes. “We weren’t.”

“But we wanted to,” Anders surmised.

“You did,” Fenris stated flatly. “You wanted more than that. You…” He let out a snort of frustration. “I’m not good at speaking like this,” he admitted, the words pulled from him. Not speaking plainly was what had started this mess, but when the time came for him to do so, Fenris was at a loss where to begin. There were years’ worth of history to tell, things that had gone unsaid for so long that to try to explain, the normally closed off elf found himself at a loss.

It had all sounded so ridiculous in his head, but he had been desperate at the time. To repeat the words, to say out in the open what had led to Anders’ move to separate himself from Justice was opening himself up for more pain and guilt.

But he owed Anders this. He owed it to the mage to tell him the why.

Fenris tried again. “I need you to not say a word until I am finished. I can’t… You need to understand…”

Anders pressed his lips together tightly and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

It was hard enough to talk about most things with the few people he trusted. This Anders was a stranger to him, lacking the experiences that had shaped him into a different man over the years. Fenris hadn’t quite understood just how much Justice had influenced Anders, how his life with the spirit had transformed him.

He was beginning to see the difference.

So when Fenris began to talk, he spoke instead to the Anders he might have forever lost, and not to the Grey Warden before him. He told him of his time in Tevinter—from his first memories of pain, fear, and blood, through the days serving at his master’s side, to both of his escapes, the one that failed and the one that succeeded. He spoke of coming to Kirkwall and the decision to await Danarius there, how tired he’d been of running. He took Anders through the years, of meeting Hawke and the others, of traveling with Anders, Hawke, and Bethany to the Deep Roads. He left little out, telling Anders of his long wait for Danarius, of his rage that went soul deep, more permanent than the lyrium in his skin, and no less deadly. How it had colored his every action, his every thought, until his hatred of magic had consumed him—how he had embraced that hatred because it had given him purpose, it had been easy.

When he’d finally finished, the room had fallen silent except for the low crackling of the fire. Fenris had spent the time as he had spoken watching the myriad emotions crossing Anders’ face—the faint narrowing of his eyes, his lips occasionally pulling in a small grimace, little details that showed that Anders had been listening.

“All right,” Anders finally said, breaking the silence, “I can see why I would have wanted you.”

“Excuse me?” Fenris shot to his feet and began pacing the room. “Did you not hear everything that I just said? Magic has ruined me.”

Anders waved away his question. “I heard you.” A small smile crossed his lips. “You hate the magisters as much as I hate the Templars. Both of us only ever wanted to be left alone.”

“Mages,” Fenris told him. “I hate mages.”

“Magisters,” Anders corrected.  “And you don’t hate mages. You hate weak people.” The smile dropped from his face. “But this doesn’t explain why I…” He trailed off and blinked. “Oh… I was weak because I let Justice inside me. I would have known that you hated that.” He spoke more to himself. “Prove it… someone told me to prove myself.” He abruptly sat forward, his staff clattering to the floor. “That was  _you_. I don’t quite remember it, but it was you, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” Fenris’ hands balled into fists at his side and he stopped in the middle of the room. “But there was more to it than—“

Anders got to his feet. “What in the Void? I performed dangerous magic that could have fucking killed me for  _you_? Why would I have done that? I…” His chest rose and fell as realization set in, his breath seesawing between parted lips, his eyes wide and incredulous. “No, no, no. I wouldn’t have done something like that for just anyone. You said I had wanted more. I was in love with you.” His eyes narrowed into angry slits, a muscle in his jaw jumping as he clenched his teeth. “I was in love with you, and you  _knew_  it. You knew it and yet you goaded me into… into…”

“Yes,” Fenris whispered. He couldn’t deny it. He couldn’t deny his guilt and Anders’ right to know.

“Then maybe it’s a good thing that I don’t remember you,” Anders said sharply between gritted teeth.

“There’s more.”

Anders tipped his head back. “’More,’ he says,” he told the ceiling. His head dropped back down. “I’m not sure if I care enough right now to hear it. I think you’ve said enough.”

When he made to turn, Fenris reached out and grasped his upper arm, stopping him. He knew that if Anders left now, then he would never hear the whole of it, that he would never see the mage again.

“I wanted to become a Grey Warden,” Fenris said quickly. He could feel the muscle under his hand tense at his words. Anders refused to look at him, but Fenris spoke anyway, purging himself. “I had asked you over one night. You came and it was the only time I had ever invited you over. It’s also the only time I had ever asked for your help. I wanted to know where to find the Wardens of Ferelden and what my chances were of becoming one. I needed… I needed something in my life to give me purpose. You became angry with me. We fought and then you… you kissed me. You told me that you loved me, that becoming a Warden was a death sentence. I became angry because I thought it was a trick, something that you said in order to prevent me from… from…”

“Another mage taking something you wanted away from you,” Anders finished softly. He finally turned and looked at Fenris, anguish twisting his face. “You could have gone to Ansburg. It’s the Warden stronghold in the Free Marches.”

Fenris swallowed. “No. I couldn’t have.” And here was the hard part, the thing that Fenris had been pushing away since he had first decided to go to Ferelden, to walk into Vigil’s Keep. It had always been there in the back of his mind, an idea that had taken deep root and slowly flourished in the miasma of hate and bitterness.

“I needed it to be Vigil’s Keep, where you had once been.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Me?” Anders shook his head. “Why in the Void would you go and join the Wardens because of me? Why the Vigil?” He wanted to rip his arm free from Fenris’ grasp, to break away from the elf’s penetrating gaze, to run from this crumbling monument to hate that he lived in. But he stayed rooted to the spot, pinned in place not by Fenris’ touch or gaze, but by Anders’ own innate sense that this was important, that he needed to finish hearing Fenris out. He needed the whole truth or else he wouldn’t be able to move pass what either of them had done.

So although he wanted to run, to finish taking those last few steps that would have him out of the door and down the precarious stairs, Anders stayed.

“Because you were directionless once,” Fenris replied. “You never said so in so many words, but I know you were. You were in this endless cycle of fleeing for freedom and being dragged back to your imprisonment in chains. But you found people that believed in you, that gave you the freedom you wanted, gave you purpose. You want to go back, don’t you? You said as much. The Grey Wardens believe you dead. You don’t have to go to them, but you want to.”

He released Anders and took a step back. He spread his arms wide to encompass the room, his lyrium brands exposed on his palms and the underside of his arms, markings that were beautiful and terrible. They had hurt him when he had received them. Without Fenris telling him his horrifying story, Anders would have guessed as much. There was a reason that there weren’t others like him. If the lyrium hadn’t killed Fenris when it was first laid into his skin it would eventually, a gruesome death that would start with madness. It was like…

“I told you about the Calling, didn’t I?” Anders interrupted.

Fenris lowered his arms and gave him a sharp nod of ascent.

“The lyrium eventually renders the Templars mad in a way. It depends on how long they took it and how much, but it will happen to them all. How are you still able to function with all of that lyrium running through your system?”

“Magic,” Fenris said flatly. “But there are times when I,” he closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again. “When I can feel that the magic is weakening. My thoughts sometimes feel fractured and my hands will shake. It has only happened a handful of times over the years, but I know I’m being slowly poisoned. I would have a death of my own choosing. You once said that Wardens only have about twenty years after they take the Joining. Whether it’s the lyrium or the taint, it’s all the same in the end. I don’t think I would have lived beyond that—not sane.”

Anders could see what it had taken for Fenris to make that confession. It was in the tense set of his shoulders and the way he had folded his arms across his chest, as if to shield himself from the truth he had let loose into the open air.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Anders said carefully. “Why the Vigil?”

Fenris held his eyes for a heartbeat before glancing away, his hair falling over his eyes—another shield. “You would occasionally talk about your time with the Grey Wardens. I would… listen. How many other places do you think there are for me in the world? The Wardens of Ferelden seemed like—“

“Like the crazy mishmash of people that you already know in Kirkwall. The kind of people that wouldn’t judge you for what had been done to you,” Anders finished.

The elf glanced up sharply. “Or try and use me for it.”

Anders got it, he really did. But Fenris wasn’t seeing the whole picture. He didn’t understand what being a Warden truly entailed. Something struck Anders about this conversation, a niggling in the back of his mind that prodded him lightly.

They’d spoken of this before.

Maybe not all of it, and maybe not so openly, but he felt as if they were rehashing old arguments. It was eerie, this feeling of been there done that when he couldn’t remember the initial time. This wasn’t like being drunk enough that he didn’t recall the things he had said and done, only to rely on others and a fractured, dream-like memory of what had occurred. He’d had a full memory of this at one time. He’d been cognizant enough to actually hold a conversation, to make his points, to pick and choose his words. He’d been sober and able to feel what was happening, to remember those feelings the next day and the day after, to examine them and turn them over in his mind until he’d—

Until he’d made a rash decision.

Anders closed his eyes in resignation. “How much of this did you tell me the first time?”

“Only that I wanted to become a Warden,” Fenris replied. “You became angry and we fought.”

“Yeah…” Anders scrubbed at his face, feeling the stubble along his jaw scratch lightly at his palms. He opened his eyes. “Yeah… I can see I would’ve gotten angry. Especially if I’d… I’d been in love with you.”

If Anders hadn’t been paying attention he would have missed the slight flinch that Fenris gave at his words, the subtle recoiling at the truth. He didn’t know what to say to the elf or what Fenris wanted from him. He didn’t remember Fenris—or the feelings he’d had for him. There had only ever been one person that Anders had loved enough to have done something as insane for, and he hadn’t seen Karl in a long time. He had loved Karl as much as he’d been able to. The Circle wasn’t the kind of place where love blossomed and flourished. Instead, the Templars would crush that love under their steel covered boots and salted the earth to make sure it never grew again. Anders had been reckless, still was it seemed, and he had loved Karl so much, but it hadn’t been enough to go beyond asking the older mage to escape with him. He had never pushed Karl to leave, had never tried to go back for him.

It seemed he had loved Fenris intensely enough to chance making himself Tranquil. A fate that Anders had always feared beyond all others. He had risked that for a chance for Fenris to see him as something other than an abomination, other than a weak mage.

At that moment he wished he could remember. He wanted to know what it felt like to love someone so much that he would risk all, to want to become a better person in their eyes.

Maker, he wanted to taste that feeling just once in his life.

He wanted it in return.

“Did you ever love me?” he blurted out, unable to snatch the words back into his throat before they crossed his lips.

**

Fenris sucked in a sharp breath. “I don’t know,” he replied honestly. What else could he say? How could he explain the nights since Anders had left him, the taste of lust, need, and angry accusations on his lips from Anders’ kiss, harsh and sweet? The nicer feelings in life did not come easily to Fenris. People leaned by the example of their parents, by those around them. Fenris had only ever known Danarius’ unforgiving touch. He had been conditioned to want little for himself than what his master gave him. To express feelings other than what Danarius had wished him to feel had only ever led to pain and humiliation. How did he explain that to Anders? Until the Fog Warriors, Fenris had never felt what it was like to be treated as more than a beautiful animal, to be exhibited and made to do tricks. Danarius had made sure that Fenris had learned that no matter how well he was treated by another, he would always be a wild animal, waiting to bite the hand that fed him at his master’s command.

He had learned that lesson well.

He still had nightmares about the day he had slaughtered the Fog Warriors who had taken him in, nursed him, and given him shelter.

Maker, help him. He had feared the day that Danarius would finally come to Kirkwall. He had feared what he would do to Hawke and the others. But Hawke hadn’t doubted him. He had shown Fenris that he was more than a feral beast masquerading as an elf.

“I don’t know if I’m capable of it.” He couldn’t look Anders in the eyes. These were things he should have said from the start, instead of goading Anders into desperation. “I’m discovering what it is to have my own mind. It’s hard for me to… to know if what I’m feeling is real or not. I spent… I spent much of my life being told what to feel. I did not mean for you to—“

“Yeah… I get it,” Anders said. “Look I…” Now it was Anders that was having trouble with words that usually came so easily to him. “I get it,” he repeated lamely. “In the Circle, love was nothing but a game. I was good at playing it.” Fenris glanced up to see Anders grinning, the corners of his eyes crinkling in fond remembrance. “Really good at it. But it was hollow.” He shrugged. “The real thing has always frightened me. The one time I felt it I never let myself really let go with him. I’ve always regretted that.” he blinked. “Maybe enough that when I thought I might have it again, I did something dangerous.”

“I—“ Fenris started, only to be cut off again.

“You know, maybe you were just the excuse. The last straw. I’ve heard enough to know that Justice and I were changed when we merged—maybe not for the better. I was unstable. He was consuming me and I had let it happen.” He chuckled wryly to himself. “You probably saved my life if you think about it.”

There it was.

Past the doom and gloom, the manifesto, the anger, there had always been hints of this Anders, his true self overshadowed by Justice, his hate magnified by the spirit’s presence inside him. They had brought out the worst in each other. But Anders always had a way of getting straight to the point with humor and crooked smiles.

Fenris wanted that. He wanted to know what it was like to go through a life of degradation and come out without the hate eating you alive. He wanted that little bit of lightness in his life that Anders had.

“If there was anyone that I could love it would be you.” He caught and held Anders’ gaze. “I was going to tell the Wardens about you. I was going to tell them you were alive and needed help.”

**

“I wish I remembered you,” Anders admitted. “Some part of me wants to. Why else would the only memory I have of my time in Kirkwall be of you? I…” he snorted in self-deprecating laughter. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. It feels like just a few days ago I was in the Vigil trying to hide from that damned Templar that Aedan had let into the keep. I… I want to go back. I had a home at the Vigil, I had… friends. But now years have gone by and everyone thinks I’m dead.”

His eyes moved past Fenris and glance over the elf’s shoulder, his gaze turning distance as his mind tried to grapple with the enormity of what had happened to him. He had been almost constantly on the move since the moment he had woken up in Hawke’s bed. Finding out how and why he had lost his memories had driven Anders, given him the ability to avoid thinking on what his memory loss truly meant for him.

He had no such excuse now. All the cards were on the table and he was well past the ability to fold.

“I had actual responsibilities here. A mage resistance? What in the Void are those people supposed to do now? Does anyone even know how deep I was in it? Because I sure as shit don’t. What about the clinic? I blew the damned place up. Where are the poor bastards in Darktown supposed to go now? Did they rely on me? Did I even have a contingency for that? Hawke told me I was one of his best friends and I don’t even remember the man’s first name.”

“Garrett,” Fenris whispered.

“Garrett… Thank you. I don’t know who my friends are here. I don’t know my enemies. I could waltz back into the Hanged Man and get stabbed because I pissed off some drunk sailor at one point, and I didn’t know enough to stay the fuck away from him. Believe me, if I know how to do anything it’s how to piss people off. It doesn’t sound like that had changed about me at least.

“I don’t remember you except for a flash of an argument.” Anders tapped at his temple, his face twisted in anguish. “I loved you at one point. Enough to… to… risk destroying myself and Justice. I don’t even know if Justice made it back to the Fade in one piece. I loved you that much and all I can remember of you is fighting with you. I don’t remember what your lips taste like. I don’t remember if you reciprocated. I don’t remember if it had been hard and deep, or if it had been soft and gentle. I don’t know if I can go back to the Wardens, but I don’t know if I can stay here. What do I have here that—“

When Fenris reached for Anders the mage didn’t stop him. He didn’t stop the slide of Fenris’ hands up his arms, or when his fingers tangled in the shorter hairs that brushed along Anders’ neck. When the kiss came, Fenris bringing Anders’ down to meet his lips, something inside Anders’ mind clicked.

Finally, it said on a sigh.

The kiss was gentle, a brushing of Fenris’ lips over Anders’. Anders could taste wine on the elf’s lips and in each exhalation. The kiss was brief, just a soft touch. Fenris pulled back just far enough to look into Anders’ eyes. Anders hadn’t quite appreciated how green Fenris’ eyes were, the color of moss clinging to the stone of forgotten ruins, thriving life where there had once been decay.

“That’s not how we kissed,” Fenris murmured, his warm breath washing over Anders’ skin. “This is…”

The push that Fenris gave him wasn’t gentle. Anders stumbled backwards until his back slammed into the wall behind him. Fenris followed and was on him in an instant, his lips crushing Anders’ in a bruising kiss. The kiss was all teeth, tongue, and eager lips. It spoke of want and desire, the craving for touch and sensation. Anders wasn’t drowning in it, gasping for life. His breath was Fenris’ breath, panted back and forth between parted lips. He could breathe and his heart pounded a staccato in his chest, a drumming that was matched by the thumping he could feel of Fenris’ own against his chest, marking out the beats of the kiss as they fell into a rhythm.

This was a kiss worth dying for, Anders thought. He’d had his share of lovers in the Circle. He knew the mechanics of a good kiss—how to angle his head just right, when to increase the pressure to drive a moan from his lover’s lips. But he had never been kissed like this before, with wild abandon that burned.

Not even with Karl who had been the love of Anders’ life. It didn’t mean that he had loved Karl less than he had thought, but that Fenris’ kiss was another animal, a creature that Anders had never encountered before, one that threw off his world view.

I knew this, he thought. This isn’t the first time I’ve realized this. To have this again… To have a chance to have him… Things might have been different if I had felt this intensely with Karl.

A pain stabbed at his temples. Pinpoint sharp and sudden it made him gasp. He groaned at the cascade of memories that were less visions of what had once been, and more the remembrance of feeling. Overwhelming despair crushed him, pushing aside the intense desire. A whimper escaped him, the sound of a wounded animal.

“Anders?” Fenris pulled back far enough to search his eyes. The elf’s lips were kiss-swollen and abraded from the stubble that lined Anders’ jaw.

Anders felt his eyes rolling, and the back of his head struck the wall behind him when he jerked away. He could feel Fenris grasping his shoulders, could hear him calling his name.

The memories came then, visions to give a clearer picture of the despair.

A knife in his hand.

Sorry, so sorry.

This shouldn’t have happened.

What did they do to you?

I’ll set you free, Karl. I’ll set you free and make them pay for what they have done.

Blood hot and slick on his hands. A warm body slumping against him, exhaling the last bit of life on a sigh.

They will not take another. We promise you this.

The rage burst forth from him, a tangible thing that slammed into Fenris, burning bright and blue. The elf flew back, hurtling into a chair, Fenris and the furniture crashing to the floor to the sound of snapping wood.

Anders saw it happen—he had heard the sound of Fenris’ cry of astonishment and then pain. But the rage consumed him, sparking his magic in ways that it had never before done.

He took a step forward towards Fenris. “They took Karl!” he boomed. His voice was thick, coming from a place deep inside him.

**

Fenris climbed to his feet with a bitten off groan of pain as Anders walked towards him. The mage’s movements were exacting, lacking the rolling gait that he usually displayed. Anders’ eyes flashed an unearthly blue with not quite the same intensity that he’d once displayed when Justice would ride his body, but there all the same.

This was what Justice had left behind—a piece of his anger from an uneven tear when Anders had ripped him from his soul. Part of Anders’ memories had gone with Justice, while the mage had been left with a portion of Vengeance’s rage.

“You did not tell me!” Anders cried.

“How were we to tell you?” Fenris shouted back. “How were we to tell you of every single thing you have done over the years. I was not there when it happened!”

“I can feel his blood on my hands. Hot and sticky, it will never come off. I scrub and scrub, but I smell it on my skin. They killed him to get to me. My fault. It was my fault!” Tears rolled down Anders’ cheeks, sparking brightly as they left the light in his eyes.

He paused in mid-step, his body trembling. “What is happening to me? Maker, help me. I can’t control it. The rage… I can feel it burning inside me. I—“ He dropped to his hands and knees, his fingers clawing into the rug, tearing holes into the fragile and decaying weave with his nails.

“Help me,” Anders pleaded on a broken whisper.

Fenris didn’t give himself time to think. He rushed over to the mage and dropped to his knees beside him. Slipping his arms around Anders, he pulled him close. He said the first thing that came to his mind, the sort of things he would have wanted someone to tell him.

“Sometimes the anger feels like it’s all you are,” he murmured into Anders’ ear. “Sometimes you feel like it’s too much and you’re going to fly apart. You need a release, a way to make sure that it doesn’t destroy you completely. So you say things you don’t mean, become abrasive. It only makes you angrier, because you have no one that will speak to you, not really. They’re a little bit afraid of you. They’re afraid of your anger and the things you might say.”

Fenris closed his eyes and pressed his face into the nap of Anders’ neck, breathing in his scent. “You hate what you’ve become and you think maybe they’re right, that you’re unstable and will one day snap. You hate and you hate, and you just want to make those that forged you this way to suffer.

“But all you truly want, deep down where you keep all the things you won’t ever say out loud, much less admit to yourself, is someone to tell you that it’s all right. That they understand. That they are sorry this was done to you. No excuses. No pity. Just… I’m sorry. You are a good person despite this. You are stronger than your anger. You are…” Fenris swallowed and pressed a kiss to Anders’ throat. “You are loved.”

Anders’ body shuddered and he let loose with a broken sob. “Maker, what did I do to myself? Was this what it was like?” His voice had returned to its normal cadence. He shifted and Fenris pulled back so Anders could look up at him with horrified eyes.

“No,” Fenris told him honestly. “It was worse.”


	5. Chapter 5

Fenris awoke to a warm body next to him--a pale arm draped over his waist, soft breath in his ear. He closed his eyes again for a moment, letting his limbs relax and sank into the warmth. He couldn’t say when the two of them had decided to crawl into Fenris’ bed and pull the blankets over them. He wasn’t sure at what point Anders had removed his coat and boots before sliding in. What he _did_ know was that he’d had the best sleep he’d had in known memory--free of nightmares. He had always been a light sleeper, his time as a slave and then an escapee had trained him well to awaken at any little noise and be alert. But with Anders beside him, Fenris had fallen quickly into a deep, sound sleep.  If he had dreamed at all he didn’t remember it, his body and mind seeking out Anders’ comforting warmth as they had slept.

Fenris reluctantly opened his eyes, and let reality and the sight of his bedchamber with the cold fireplace, the fire long since gone out, intrude. He hadn’t lied to Anders when he had told him that he wasn’t sure if he was capable of loving someone.  Letting himself care or love had only ever brought him and those around him to ruin.

It came to him then, a knowledge that he had always been able to see shimmering below the murky surface of his thoughts, that his hatred of weakness stemmed from his own self-loathing.

He hated himself for being too weak to deny Danarius when he had ordered Fenris to kill the Fog Warriors, one of the first few people who had ever shown the elf kindness without asking for anything in return.

He hated himself for capitulating at all to Danarius in anything the magister had desired from him.

He hated that he lived in a manner that only the lowest slaves in the Imperium lived—in squalor and decay, eking out a shadowed existence.

His opinion of himself had always been contingent on others. He needed to find something within himself that would give him a sense of pride. People would say that Fenris didn’t lack for pride, but they often mistook a hatred of weakness for arrogance. But it was his own weakness he hated, mirrored in others.  

“I can hear you thinking,” Anders murmured, his voice rough from sleep. He pressed his face into the bare space of Fenris’ neck between the collar of his tunic and the ragged ends of his shock of white hair. “Is this the part where you kick me out of bed because you regret last night? I have to tell you, this’ll be the first time someone has done that to me without me having actually _done_ anything.”

“You speak a lot of your conquests in bed,” Fenris said tightly.

“Do I?” The arm left Fenris waist and the bed shifted as Anders yawned and then streatched out his long limbs.

“ _You_ do.” Fenris threw the blanket back, letting in cool air and leaving the warmth of the bed. “You didn’t before…”

Anders laughed behind him. “Well now, that isn’t any fun. Are you jealous, Fenris? You do know there are advantages to having the amount of practice that I do, right? Why we could—“

Fenris spun on his heel. “Were you always like this? You don’t take anything seriously,” he hissed between clenched teeth. That he had hit close to the mark, grated on Fenris.

Rolling over onto his stomach, Anders propped his chin in his hands and grinned up at him. “It’s entirely too easy to wind you up. It’s like you have a big sign on your back that men like me can’t help but react to.”

“Men like you?”

“Well,” Anders drawled. “When I say ‘men like me’ I mean those that like to get a rise out of pretty people just to watch their eyes flash.” He glanced up at Fenris through blonde lashes, his smile becoming sly. “There aren’t any men like me when it comes to other things. I’m very talented…”

Fenris sucked in a sharp breath. Anders was trying to seduce him. His heart began to beat franticly in his chest. How different things might have been if the mage had done this long ago, instead of waiting years and kissing Fenris in a fit of need and recriminations. Fenris had never had someone try and seduce him before. In Tevinter the magisters took what they wanted, and when he had freed himself, Fenris had pushed everyone away at the slightest hint that this was where it was going.

Fenris swallowed audibly, unsure of himself. How did one even conduct themselves with a lover? He knew how to follow commands and how to feign desire, but he didn’t know what it was like to lose himself in his partner, to laugh in bed, to smile at their every breathy sigh and moan, to whisper words of affection and appreciation.

He knew his hands had begun to tremble when Anders’ eyes flicked down and then back up to his face. Fenris balled his hands into fists to cease their shaking, stuffing down his sudden panic.

Anders pushed himself upright and slid off the bed. He bent down and snatched up his boots from the floor. “So I’ve made a decision about what I’m going to do,” he said idly as he yanked on the laces of his boots, staring down at the well-worn leather intently. He straightened and stomped in his boots to settle his feet before turning to face Fenris. The wicked look in his eyes was gone, replaced by a guarded determination. It was as if the last few minutes hadn’t happened, as if he hadn’t seen the turmoil written in every line of the elf’s stiff posture.

Fenris wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved that the mage hadn’t pressed his seduction beyond coy glances and wicked innuendos.  

Flashing Fenris a grin, Anders picked up his coat from one of the bedposts and slipped it on. “But first I’m going to need your help.”

**

Varric’s suite at the Hanged Man was crowded. Every seat around the large table to one side of the room was taken. Thank the Maker for dwarven architecture. The dwarves did nothing small and delicate like the Orlesians. There was easily room for them all around the smooth, carved stone.

Anders’ eyes darted from one person to another, trying to place the names he had been told with faces--Aveline, a guard captain, her husband Donnic, Merrill, a dalish elf that lived in the alienage, and Sebastian Vael, a would-be brother of the Chantry. Varric, Hawke, and Isabela he already knew. And of course there was Fenris, who had sat next to him, a scowl on his face.

Anders was beginning to think he should have gone with his first instinct and announced to Fenris what he had decided instead of asking him for help in gathering his friends together.  These were the people who had known Anders over the years. They had fought with him, and they had seen each other at their best and worst.

He didn’t know them.

He had hoped that there might be a small sliver of memory still left to him that he could recall something about them, a tiny vein of gold hidden deep in the darkness.

There was nothing.

“So!” Anders said as he slapped his hands down on the table, silencing the friendly chatter and garnering their attention. “Let’s recap what Hawke has already told all of you. In a fit of pique I decided to do some admittedly impressive magic and hopefully sent Justice back to the Fade.” He held up his hand. “No, no, don’t congratulate me to tell me what a magical genius I am. We can all just take it as a given. Justice took off with my memories of our wonderful time together, and I don’t really have a clue as to who you people are other than the basics.”

He grinned at the myriad of dumbfounded expressions. “What I need from all of my lovely friends, is to tell me whether or not I had a contingency plan set in place for the clinic if something ever happened to me. Please tell me that I’m the bastion of responsibility that I think I was and made one.”

Silence fell and Anders winced. “I didn’t, did I? Just wonderful.”

“If you need help rebuilding the clinic, I’ll help you,” Merrill piped up.

She looked too sweet, with her large, expressive eyes, to be a blood mage. Fenris had said that Hawke was working to help her to change her ways, to see that there were other options to help her people instead of turning to a demon for aid. Anders couldn’t stand blood mages. Not only did they give the Chantry ammunition in order to subjugate mages, he never could understand why they would willingly work with a demon when everyone knew it never turned out well.

Anders winced again. What a hypocrite he was. If he had learned anything from all of this, it was that all mages were susceptible to the draw of power, especially in desperation. In desperation he had performed blood magic in order to separate himself from Justice. At some point he had let Justice inside him. Justice had been no demon, but the outcome had been the same. iThey both had been losing control if that small taste he’d had of the combined rage of he and Justice was any indication.  Intense need could turn even the best intentions into blood soaked chaos.

Anders cleared his throat. “Thank you, but no. _I_ don’t need it rebuilt. I was just hoping that I wasn’t going to be leaving these people without a healer.”

Silence fell once again. Anders fought not to squirm under the scrutiny.

“Mind telling us what that means, Blondie?” Varric asked.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Hawke said softly.

Anders raised a finger. “Fun fact--we’re in Kirkwall. More to the point, _I’m_ in Kirkwall. I’m an apostate who the Grey Wardens think is dead. I also seem to have painted a giant ‘I hate the Templars’ sign on my back. Which, funny enough, this is the worst place other than Val Royeux to do that. The Gallows is not known for being a friendly place for mages. Never has been. I,” he tapped at his chest, “have been smuggling mages out of the Gallows for years. I think sticking around is the worst thing I should do. I like myself. I’d like to keep me alive for a while longer.

“Do you think the Knight-Commander is going to believe me, or even care, if I tell her that I’m a conscripted Grey Warden and exempt from having a pretty design burned into my forehead? Because I sure don’t.  The Templars were sniffing around me in Ferelden and my commander was a popular guy at the time. They didn’t seem to mind pissing him off, and he’s got no small amount of power,” he rolled his eyes, “or had. I don’t even know anymore. The point is that I need to get out of Kirkwall—quickly. I need to go back to Amaranthine. I thought I should… Say goodbye, or something, to the people who’d been my friends. Maybe see if I had ever had a backup plan for the people of Darktown. Which,” he grimaced, “I don’t seem to have had.”

He hadn’t spoken yet as to what Justice had left behind, the rage that consumed him. He didn’t know what would trigger him again, and wanted to be someplace where he could get help, where he wouldn’t be afraid of hurting someone.

Everyone spoke at once, their voices rising above each other until some of them were shouting at him, and each other. But it was Fenris’ voice that penetrated the din, silencing them all.

“I’ll take you. I have money set aside and can afford to pay for passage on a ship.” He titled his chin up, as if daring any of them to gainsay him.

Of course it was Anders who did. “Wait, what? Are you still on this ‘I want to be a Grey Warden’ kick? You _do_ know that you might not survive the Joining, right? Please say that I had at least told you that much at one point, because it’s pretty important.” He blinked. This was it. This was the argument they had had, what had set Anders off, the very detail that had enraged him so much and want to do something to make Fenris stay. Even without a memory to confirm it, Anders knew. He could see it in how Fenris’ jaw set in harsh lines, his eyes turning into angry slits.

He hadn’t wanted Fenris to die in the Joining, powerless, unable to heal his fatal wound because it was beyond anyone to heal.

Anders snapped his mouth closed. Fenris had had all of his choices taken away by a mage’s machinations. A Templar had told once told Anders that he couldn’t join the Grey Wardens, but he had accepted and done it anyway.  How was this any different?

“No, you know what? Come with me. If Velanna is still there, the two of you can brood together and make snappy remarks.”

“I knew you were thinking of leaving,” Donnic said quietly. “You had seemed more withdrawn during the past few months, but I didn’t want to pry.”

Fenris gave him a small smile. “Think of it this way, you won’t have to worry about what lie you’re going to have to tell Aveline about the money you lost to me at diamondback anymore.”

Aveline narrowed her eyes on her husband, her pale skin darkening to red in her anger, contrasting sharply with the freckles that dotted her skin and her fiery hair. “I knew it!”


	6. Chapter 6

The ship hit a rolling wave, the vessel rocking with the momentum. Anders grasped the railing with both his hands, his stomach doing a leap. When the ship came crashing down, Anders leaned over the railing and emptied what little he had left in his stomach, his throat burning.

He was in a special corner of the Void reserved for idiot mages that couldn’t seem to come up with a spell to halt the turmoil in his belly. Everything he had tried had only worked so far, just enough so that he could manage to keep down half of his meals.

He wiped his mouth with the rag he clutched tightly in his hand and moaned. He couldn’t stay in the cabin that he shared with Fenris anymore, and had had the brilliant idea of coming up for fresh air. But the smell of the sea, the salty, fishy scent, only seemed to have made his sickness worse.

He was sure when they reached land he was never going to look at a fish the same way again. Just the thought of eating some sent him to gagging. When he had told Fenris that he was never going to eat fish again for as long as he lived, Fenris had given him a small smile of commiseration, and had told him that he didn’t like it either for the same reason. He had made the sea voyage to Seheron many times with his former master.

Anders sighed in relief as his stomach began to settle. He laid his head down on his arms and closed his eyes. There was no reason that his spells and potions shouldn’t have worked. He clearly remembered the first time he had crossed the Waking Sea to Ferelden. He’d been nothing more than a teenager at the time. His stomach had rebelled then too, but he had been able to use his burgeoning magic to keep it calm. It had been a simple healing spell, but it did little to nothing now.

Anders felt diminished.

He had always prided himself on his healing power. The amount of times he had brought people back from death, ripping them from the Fade, had given him a certain conceit. It had been well earned, but there all the same.

If he couldn’t even stop the rolling in his stomach, how was he supposed to trust that he could heal when it really counted?

He was afraid.

What use would the Wardens have for him if he couldn’t heal like he use to? If his power to heal was diminished, then what about his ability to weave more destructive spells? Finding out in the midst of battle was out of the question. But he was afraid of trying to heal someone, in battle or not, only to fail.

How did he explain to someone the frustration and pain of losing someone when he had all of this power at his disposal? It had happened before, times when the wound had been too grave or he had been too late in reaching someone. How much worse will it be if a wound he had once been able to easily heal defied his magic and the person lost their life or limb because of him?

Anders opened his eyes and glanced up. The sea was almost black, the waters far from calm. If he squinted he could make out land on the horizon. The captain had said they were two days out from Amaranthine.

Two days…

As much as Anders had hated every second on the rocking ship the past few weeks, he now found himself reluctant to step foot off of it. He had enjoyed that there had been nothing pressing for him other than the concerns of his stomach. He had liked spending his time each evening talking with Fenris, the two of them swapping stories. He had found that there was a sense of humor underneath the elf’s gruff exterior. It was subtle, but very much there. It was in his small smiles, the barest twitching of his lips, the way his eyes would spark in silent laughter.

Anders grinned to himself. Fenris was very droll, his tone dry when he said something funny. If Anders hadn’t been looking for it, he wouldn’t have thought that Fenris knew what it was to be light hearted, to laugh at life and those around him. He felt like it was a little secret that only he knew about the elf, something that they shared in speaking glances.

He wondered if he had always known that about Fenris. From the sound of it, he and the elf hadn’t spent much time alone together. Would he have been able to pick that out about Fenris with the distraction of others around them? Anders didn’t think so. His grin widened. There were times when he felt he was competing with himself for Fenris’ attention. He knew it was a bit petty to feel that he knew something about Fenris that the other him hadn’t.

He hadn’t tried to seduce Fenris since that morning in Kirkwall. Granted, he didn’t really count what he had done as _trying_. Trying was small touched and innuendos. It meant eyes meeting across the room, his own gaze slowly filling with heat. Depending on the person, it meant either taking things slowly, romantically, or pushing someone against a wall, their lips meeting in fierce desire, whispering harsh words of need.

With Fenris, though, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. Every night they slept together in one of the small beds in their cabin. Not out of necessity—there were two beds in the cabin, nailed to the floor. But in variably they would both end up in one or the other, their limbs tangling together, Fenris’ head on Anders’ chest, Anders’ face pressed in the elf’s hair.

What were they doing?

What was Anders doing?

They never mentioned what it was that was happening between them—as strange as the whole thing was. It was as if once one of them mentioned it, it would destroy the fragility of it all, the comforting peace they had found in each other shattered like fine crystal, a one of a kind creation that the world would never see its like again.

One thing at a time. First he had to make it to Amaranthine in one piece. Then he had to hope that not only was Aedan at the vigil and not off somewhere doing his hero thing, but that his anger at Anders wouldn’t be that bad.

Anders snorted. Wishful thinking. Aedan Cousland had a temper on him. It was a failing that had gotten him into trouble over the years. For someone who had been raised a noble, he sure didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘diplomacy’. He was much happier in the battlefield. During the time when Anders’ memories had stopped, Nathaniel Howe had been in charge of most of the day to day operations of the Vigil. He had known the land and its people, and his temperament was much more easy going than Aedan’s had been.

Which wasn’t saying much.

That’s not to say that Aedan had been a tyrant. He took his charge of Amaranthine and Commander of the Grey very seriously. He was good to those who fought with him. Once you were Aedan’s friend, you were his friend for life. But the same could be said if you made an enemy of him.

Anders just had to hope that he hadn’t done that.

He was just going to have to apologize for something he didn’t even remember doing.

**

To have heard Anders tell of it, Amaranthine had all but been destroyed years ago. If Fenris looked closely, he could see where the old met the new in the buildings. The city was flourishing, its streets lined with vendors hawking their wares. Prosperity had come to Amaranthine. It could be seen in the amount of people vying for space around the shopkeepers, gold exchanging hands quicker than Varric dealing cards for wicked grace.

Fenris shifted his pack on his back. Usually his massive sword wasn’t a burden, but with the added weight of the pack that contained all of his worldly possessions, the elf felt weighted down. Anders strode ahead of him through the crowded, cobblestone streets, looking neither left nor right, intent on his destination. The mage was taller than Fenris and his long legs took him quickly away from the elf. Fenris scowled and hurried after him.

The voyage to Ferelden had given Fenris a lot of time to reflect. He had been saddened to leave his friends behind, people who he had grown close to over the years before he had even known it had happened. He was going to miss playing diamondback with Donnic, the two of them talking of nothing consequential for hours. Both of them were quiet people who valued their privacy. Neither of them would ever pry into the other’s life, but it had gone unspoken that if needed, they would listen.

He had said his goodbyes to all of them with a pang of regret. Hawke had made him promise to keep practicing his letters and to write as often as he could. Merrill had given him a hug, sobbing into his breastplate. He hadn’t hugged her back, caught off guard, but he had patted her awkwardly on the back. Aveline had given him a friendly nod and told him to not get into any trouble, while Varric had shaken his hand. Sebastian had whispered to him that he hoped that Fenris knew what he was doing, and that he was a little bit jealous that he was going to become a Warden. Isabela had given him a kiss on the cheek with a wink.

For Anders it had been bittersweet. They all could see how uncomfortable he had been, shaking hands and giving half-hearted hugs. This Anders didn’t belong in Kirkwall, and they had known it.

Anders cleared the front gate of the city and paused to wait for Fenris to catch up. There was a scattering of small farms just outside the walls, fenced in crops and roaming cattle.

“Last time I was here they were still rebuilding,” Anders muttered. “Look at this place. It’s better off than before the darkspawn attacked.”

“You’ve been gone for a long time,” Fenris reminded him.

“I know. Logically I know that, but for me it’s only been a few weeks.” Anders blew out a breath and plastered on a smile. “Well, we have a bit of a walk ahead of us. The Vigil is a good half a day’s ride from here. Since we spent most of our money for passage to Ferelden, we’re stuck with walking.”

“We?” Fenris asked archly.

“You. You spent most of your money. Thank you for that, by the way. I’m not what I once was and I’m not sure what would have happened if I had bartered for passage.” He glanced down at his hands, flexing his fingers.

The two of them had been over this several times. Fenris had pointed out over and over again that Anders’ healing talent hadn’t come completely from his magic. He had a wealth of knowledge on the healing arts. If it turned out he could no longer do the extraordinary things he had once taken for granted, then there were other ways he could compensate.

Anders didn’t see it that way.

They got a few feet away from the gate when a voice called out from behind them. “Anders?”

They both froze and slowly turned. A golden skinned elf with a tattoo on one cheek, lines that moved in an elegant wave, hurried towards them. His blond hair brushed along his shoulders, held back from his face by a few small braids.

He also had several wicked looking daggers at his back and on his leather clad hips.

“I thought it was you in the city, but I was not sure, yes? It is not often that one sees a dead man, or at least, a dead man that is not a shambling corpse intent on killing me.” The elf placed his hands idly on the hilts of his blades.

None of them were fooled.

“Hey, Zev,” Anders said slowly. He pointed at himself. “Not dead. Funny story that.

Zevran, lover to the Hero of Ferelden and one of Aedan Cousland’s allies that had helped him to gather all of Ferelden together in order to defeat the Blight.

He was also a former Antivan Crow.

“I’m sure it is most hilarious,” Zevran assured him. “But I will need some proof that you are indeed my friend Anders. Especially if you are considering walking down that road towards the Vigil.” His eyes flashed dangerously. “I don’t let just anyone see my Aedan.”

Anders held his hands up. “Yeah… That much hasn’t changed at least. Would it make you feel any better if I told you that Aedan likes to make you beg for it in Antivan when the two of you are—“

Zevran grinned. “That is enough. Your bedchamber use to be next to ours, yes? After you… left… we didn’t let another take that room. My Aedan is not shy, but we did not want a repeat of your complaints.”

He dropped his hands from his daggers. “You have much explaining to do, my friend.”

Anders laughed. “That’s going to take a while. I’d rather just tell it the one time and get it over with.” He hesitated. “Is Aedan at the Vigil?”

“Of course he is,” Zevran chided. “I would not be in Amaranthine if he was elsewhere. He will be pleased to see you are not dead. After he’s done yelling at you that is.”

His eyes slid to Fenris. “And who is your handsome friend?”

“My name is Fenris,” Fenris said flatly. He didn’t like this elf with his too knowing eyes and his sly grins.

Zevran gave a bow with a flourish. “’I am Zevran. My friends call me Zev. A beautiful elf like you may call me whatever he wishes.”

Fenris narrowed his eyes. “Foolish.”

Zevran threw back his head and laughed. “I am a very foolish elf indeed. Don’t worry, pretty one. My Aedan would not be pleased if I tried to touch another. But you will allow that I may look, yes? In fact it will be hard not to. It is not every day I meet Danarius’ escaped slave.”

Sucking in a sharp breath, Fenris clenched his hands into fists. “How did you—“

Zevran clicked his tongue. “I hear things and I was in Antiva a few years ago. You came through the lovely country of my birth at one time, chased by slavers. A good amount of money was put on your head--alive of course. The markings on your skin, and your hair, are very distinctive, no? Plus I hear a trace of Tevinter when you speak.”

“I misspoke when I said you were foolish,” Fenris admitted after a beat of silence. “You are dangerous.”

“Ah.” Zevran inclined his head. “Most people make that mistake. They usually realize their error too late.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

Aedan Cousland had changed over the years. When would it stop surprising Anders that so much time had passed? Time had hardened the young Warden-Commander that Anders had once known. His dark hair was speckled with more silver than Anders had remembered seeing, and there were deep lines at the corners of his eyes.

Those eyes…

Those dark eyes had become more haunted. In the intervening years when Anders’ memories had stopped, Aedan had seen and done things that had tempered hardness in his gaze. Anders knew it the moment his eyes had landed on the mage.

He was still a big man, tall and imposing. But where once his voice had been a boisterous boom, joking with Anders and laughing with Oghren, now it had a hint of gruffness. He had stood from behind his massive desk in astonishment when Zevran had walked into his study with Anders and Fenris in tow.

Anders had had two thoughts when their eyes had met—Aedan had impossibly added more bulk to his build, which meant that he was still swinging a sword and donning heavy, steel plate to do it, and that he was angry.

Very angry.

“Zev,” Aedan gritted out between clenched teeth. “You have two seconds to tell me who in the Void these people are, why one of them looks like Anders, and why the fuck you brought them to me.” The nostrils in his patrician nose flair as his hand twitched at his side.

_Sword arm_ , Anders thought. Thank the Maker he was unarmored and unarmed. Not that it would make a difference. Anders had been with Aedan when the man had been in nothing but his smalls after they had escaped from the Architect. He had watched Aedan beat a darkspawn to death with his fists before reclaiming his armor and weapon.

It had been gruesome and had shown Anders what Aedan was capable of when he was pushed into a corner, the lengths he would go to in order to protect his Wardens.

He’d had the insane thought that maybe time and age would have tempered Aedan.

_Why_ had he even thought that?

Zevran held his hands out in front of him in a bid to calm Aedan down. “He looks like Anders because it is Anders. Now why don’t you sit down, my Aedan. They have come a long way and have much explaining to do, no? It will be easier if you were not yelling when they did so.”

“Don’t treat me like a child, Zev. You know I hate that.” Despite his words, Aedan sat back down in his chair. Anders would never cease being amazed at how easily the much shorter elf could placate Aedan. It was as if Zevran had his finger on a switch that would release the pressure in Aedan’s mind like one of those dwarven, steam powered machines he had seen once in Denerim.

Aedan could bluster all he wanted to, but at the end of the day he was clay in Zevran’s deft hands.

Aedan rapped his fingers on the dark wood of his desk in an impatient staccato. “I’m waiting. Give me a good reason to not think that Zev’s under a spell and that the quickest way to free him is to kill the two of you.”

“Funny story that,” Anders said with a weak grin.

“I did not find it amusing,” Fenris muttered next to him.

“You didn’t think the ritual I had apparently preformed was hilarious? Or that I had created a tear in the Veil? Because that was the funniest part!”

“Mage,” Fenris warned. “I think you should—“

“Enough!” Aedan slammed his fist down on his desk, jostling a mound of parchment. “Answers. Now.” He narrowed his eyes at the three of them. “Without the added commentary,” he warned.

**

Fenris did not like Aedan Cousland. He didn’t like the way a muscle had ticked in his jaw as he had listened to Anders and Fenris tell him what had happened and why they were there. He didn’t like rage that simmered in his eyes, barely kept in check.

And he definitely did not like the pointed questions he had asked them—especially of Fenris.

“Tevinter,” Aedan said, drawing out the word as if it had left a bad taste in his mouth. “I’ve had dealings with the magisters in the past. I had to kill a group of them several years ago that were kidnapping people in the Denerim alienage and selling them into slavery.” His dark eyes pierced Fenris. “I have no love for magisters, but I find your story a little bit too convenient. How do I know this isn’t some magister plot to insert themselves in the vigil? How do I know that this is really Anders? What proof do I have?”

Instead of answering Aedan, Fenris shot a glance at Anders. “I can see why you would have wanted to leave. At least in Kirkwall, Hawke took your word at face value, no matter how ill advised that was.”

“Excuse me?” Aedan growled. “What did you just say?”

“Oh, shit,” Anders whispered. “Fenris… You don’t want to do—“

“Maybe we should return to Kirkwall after all,” Fenris continued on. “It seems we have wasted our time coming here. You will not get the help you seek from the Wardens.” At this, he finally turned his regard on Aedan. “I had been led to believe the Wardens took care of their own. It seems I was misinformed. Pity…”

Aedan shot to his feet, his face twisted in rage. “Look, I don’t fucking know you. If this is Anders, then you better fucking believe we will do everything we can to help him. But you need to understand something first. I’ve had my fair share of people trying to slip into the ranks of my Wardens. So you’ll pardon me for being suspicious when I see a man who I fucking buried, standing in my study years later with an outlandish story about another supposedly dead friend. I’m doing you a courtesy by not throwing the two of you in the dungeon and calling for one of my mages to see if Zev is under a spell.”

“Aedan,” Zevran interjected.

“No, Zev,” he snapped.  “The last time assassins got into the Vigil they almost killed you. I am not going through that again. So I ask once more and for the final time, what proof do either of you have?”

“None,” Anders said before Fenris could open his mouth in retort. “I have no proof other than my word. I have nothing but the scars on my hip and a memory that’s gone. I could tell you about the battles we fought together, or the fun times we had. I could tell you story after story, but I have no proof other than that I am so I say I am. Aedan, I came back because the Vigil is my home and you’re my family. I came back because this was the first place I wanted to be when I woke up in a strange city.

“Do you hear me, Aedan? This place, with the Deep Roads, and the broodmothers, and the drunk dwarves, and perpetually fearing for my life and sanity, was the first place I thought of to come to. I ran _back_ to you, Aedan. I never run back to anyone—ever. I came back to you because at one time you liked having me around, and I _liked_ being around.”

The silence in the room was an almost tangible thing. Something in Aedan’s eyes shifted and he slowly sank back into his seat, tension leaking out of his shoulders. He steepled his fingers together and pressed the tips to his lips, closing his eyes. “Anders…” His eyes snapped open and he sucked in a shuddering breath. “Anders…”

Zevran moved towards Aedan, skirting the desk to drop to his knees by the chair. He all but disappeared behind the desk and only the upper half of his face was visible. He took Aedan’s wrists in his hands and forced them away from the commander’s face, before touching gentle fingers to Aedan’s jaw and turning his head to face him.

“Aedan…” Zevran whispered.

Aedan blinked rapidly a few times before he spoke. “How many times, Zev? How many times are they are going to come back to me from the dead before my luck runs out?”

“You act as if you are not deserving of it, my Warden.” Zevran titled his head to the side. “You have more than earned happiness. Have I not been telling you this for years now?”

There was subtext here that Fenris did not understand, nuances that he was not privy to. But in that moment Fenris understood something. The fear that your good fortune was nothing but an illusion was something that he was intimately acquainted with. He knew what it was to dread that what you were being given wasn’t the hope you thought it was.

At some point you stopped believe it all together.

As Fenris watched Aedan Cousland pull himself together, he knew that if the commander would have him, he was going to ask to become a warden. From the moment he had entered the study, Aedan had shown that he would fight for his Wardens, bleed for them, cry for them. Fenris wanted that, he wanted to feel what that was like. Oh, he’d had a version of that in Kirkwall, but it had been tainted with Danarius’ specter. This was true freedom—to meet a man and make the decision to follow him, not for his own gain, but because his very being asked it of him.

 **

“I can’t believe you,” Anders whispered in a hiss as he, Fenris, Aedan, and Zevran walked to the dining hall. Zevran had explained that the Wardens of the keep used it as a meeting place.

It was where they would find some old friends of Anders.

“Pardon?” Fenris murmured back.

Anders glanced up sharply to make sure that Aedan and Zevran were several paces ahead of them before answering. “You told him you wanted to join. Are you insane? Did nothing I said to you penetrate your stubborn skull?” Fear had clawed at Anders’ throat when he had heard Fenris utter those damned words, asking Aedan if he could become a Grey Warden.

The fear had choked him when Aedan had looked Fenris up and down, tilted his head to the side, then gave him a ‘maybe’ in response.

“What more do I need to do to get you to see how crazy this is? Do you want me to slice off more of my flesh? Would that make you happy?”

Fenris paused in midstride and turned on Anders. “I did not ask you to do that. Did we not already discuss this? I make my own decisions about my life, mage. If I wish to bind myself to the Grey Wardens, then I shall do so.”

Anders knew that. He knew it, but the fear still gripped him tightly. “You might not survive the Joining,” he whispered. “You could die. You could die and there’d be nothing I could do about it. I can’t stop it. I can’t help you with it. One moment your there, the next…” He licked lips suddenly gone dry. “The next you’re dead at my feet. No one knows who or why the Joining kills some and not others. No one knows who will survive. Don’t make me watch this, Fenris. Please.”

“I…” Fenris darted his eyes down the hallway to see Zevran and Aedan rounding a corner and disappearing. “Then do not watch it, Anders. I do not know what the future will hold for me. But you and I both have had pieces of ourselves taken by our own design, or by force. No more—for either of us. You have a second chance at life. Now I need mine. Or what do I have? A wreck of a house in Hightown? Trailing behind another man who has more purpose than I do? I will forge my own purpose and I choose this.”

Anders scrubbed at his face with his hands, suddenly tired. “All right. I’ll say no more about it.” Fenris snorted in disbelief and the mage gave him a self-deprecating smile. “I will _try_ not to say anything more. But you have to understand, at one time you meant a lot to me. Enough that I did… the thing I did. You still… you still mean a lot to me. Don’t die on me.”

“As long as you can promise the same,” Fenris said. “You must tell Aedan, though. Do not think I did not notice the lack.”

Anders rolled eyes towards the ceiling and shook his head. “One thing at a time, okay? They don’t need to know what Justice left me with just yet.”

“You must tell them soon, Anders. Before they found out the hard way as we did.”

Anders noticed that as the two of them had spoken, they had unconsciously moved closer together. Whether it was from a need to hear their furtive whispers, or because they each had been seeking out the other’s warmth, a heat and comfort they had grown used to during the long journey to Ferelden, he didn’t know.

The scent of leather and steel filled his senses and he found himself leaning closer. It was a surreal moment, one where once they were both aware of it, became all the more dreamlike. He and Fenris had not touched each other since that day at his mansion, and there had been numerous times on the ship that Anders had found himself watching the elf, the way that Fenris would tilt his head down and to the side when he was avoiding a question, hiding behind his fall of white hair, or how he would become animated when excited about something, his hands gesturing wildly as he spoke.

But each night they had laid chastely in each other’s arms, neither of them wanting to try to explain or talk about what they were doing. It just was.

When Anders lifted his hand and traced the sharp line of Fenris’ smooth jaw, the elf didn’t move away or turn his gaze. When Anders lowered his head, slowly, carefully, in order to give Fenris enough time to flee, Fenris’ eyes dropped to Anders’ lips.

When he brushed his lips along Fenris’, the elf let out a strangled sigh, drawn from somewhere deep inside him.

The kiss was over almost as soon as it had begun, a soft, gentle thing, because Anders had wanted to give Fenris that, because Anders had wanted it in return. It had been about comfort and safety more than heat and need.

Although a growing lust was under it, simmering.

“I want you,” Anders whispered against Fenris’ lips. “Before you try the Joining. I… I don’t want you to die without knowing…” He couldn’t get the words past his lips--Anders who was rarely without a thing to say, who had been known in the Circle for being able to talk almost anyone out of their smalls. There was no seduction in this, only brutal honesty.

 “And if Aedan does not let me attempt the Joining?” Fenris rasped.

“He will,” Anders assured him. “Damn him. He’ll put you through your paces first, but he’ll do it.”

**

Fenris stood off to the side as he watched Anders’ old friends surround him, peppering him with questions and no small amount of recriminations. For a time in Kirkwall, he had felt like an outsider with Hawke and the others. He hadn’t known what it was to have a friend, to truly trust people. He hadn’t trusted _himself_ after the Fog Warriors and what he had done to betray them.

The feeling of separateness that he had once had returned. He envied Anders’ ability to fit in almost anywhere, charming people with an easy smile. Fenris had never quite understood the trick of it. Anders had them all in the palms of his hands, accepting hugs and handshakes, along with great claps on the back while he answered questions in that gregarious way he had.

But when Fenris looked closer, beneath the quick smiles and chuckles, he could see the strain in Anders’ eyes, the tightness to his lips.

The mage was nervous.

It might have been only a few weeks for Anders, but he hadn’t seen these people in years. Time changed everything, and Anders had become stagnant, a rock that everyone flowed around as they had move forward, passing him by.

Fenris understood it. He felt that way whenever someone spoke of their childhood with fond or even bitter memories. When Leto had died, Fenris had been born.  He’d had the knowledge of how to walk and talk, and how to do things that would take the average person years to master.  

Fenris had been born with the knowledge, but not with the memories of having learned them.

He didn’t ever recall the triumph of mastering a skill for the first time, or the pain of learning. The self-satisfaction of knowing what you were capable of because you had gone through the crucible and come out the other side.

These lessons he would know later.

Anders had done many things during his time in Kirkwall. The Anders before and the Anders now were two different men. The older one had been forged of his experiences and choices that this one lacked.

Fenris could more than empathize with that.

Still, as the others moved towards one of the long tables that were spread out in the great dining hall, leaving Fenris behind, that little bit of jealousy was becoming hard to tamp down.

That was until Zevran sidled up next to him on quiet feet.

Fenris fought to keep the startlement of his face when the blond elf spoke, slipping next to him with a cat’s silence. Fenris was wary of people at the best of times, and the journey to the Vigil from Amaranthine had taught him to be on his guard when it came to the former Crow.

He was too cunning by half.

“So good to see old friends come together once more,” Zevran sighed. “To see them like this makes one yearn for the same thing, yes? I know that I was the same way once.”

Fenris resolutely kept his eyes on the table and the people sitting at it on one end. His fingers curled in towards his palm, the only outward sign that he had heard Zevran.

It didn’t deter him in the slightest.

“Aedan will make you a Warden. Don’t let him fool you into thinking otherwise. Gone are the days when he would let anyone try the Joining. He has become more discerning over the years.”

Fenris spoke then, he couldn’t seem to help it, the question slipping from his lips. “If he is so discerning, then why would he allow me to join when he does not know me?” He cursed himself silently for engaging the other elf.

Zevran chuckled. “Because he trusts my judgment, yes? I could tell much about you at first glance, even more after I had journeyed with you for hours. You are a killer. The way you hold yourself, how your eyes constantly dart around the room, as if waiting for a knife in the back, the way you wear little in protection, not because you are careless, but because it gives you better movement. Men who have killed, and often, know these things. They know what will hinder them and what will not. When you say to Aedan, ‘I was once a Tevinter slave. I was a bodyguard for my former master,’ I think, ‘Yes, but now this handsome elf wishes to kill on his own terms’.”

He turned his head to whisper into Fenris’ ear, the shorter Zevran almost leaning into Fenris to reach him. “Assure me right now that there will be no Tevinter magisters coming for you. Assure me of this, and I will not have to kill you in order to make sure they never darken my Aedan’s door to trouble him.”

Fenris’ lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl. “Are you threatening me?”

“I can tell a lot about you, but I do not _know_ you,” Zevran hissed, all traces of light banter gone. His voice became a dagger’s edge, razor sharp and deadly, showing Fenris the assassin that he was. “There is one thing you must know about me in return. I tell this to anyone wishes to become a Grey Warden under my Aedan’s command. I only say it once. Dare to harm Aedan Cousland or anything that he has worked to build here, and I will make sure that your screams for mercy will be so loud the Maker will return to the Black City and weep for what was done to you.”

Slowly, Fenris turned his head until their eyes met. “You are insane.”

Zevran’s lips quirked in a self-deprecating smile that did not penetrate the deadly intent in his eyes. “No. I am a man in love. One who has seen the object of his affections go through the Void and come out the other side. I do what I can to make sure that darkness does not touch him more than necessary. If that means that I threaten every single person who wants to join, then so be it.” He tilted his head to the side. “You should have seen what the nobles of Amaranthine were like at one time. Vain fools who thought that my Aedan was someone to give in easily because he was only a Grey Warden and a younger son. They plotted and schemed against him, threatening his position, his Wardens, and his life.

“They no longer plot.”

“Are you claiming responsibility for that?” Fenris found himself asking.

“I am claiming that sometimes people need to be killed so great men can do what they must instead of being dragged down by the petty schemes of small minds.”

“I do not scheme,” Fenris growled. “I had more than my fair share of the schemes of others, and I do not wish to emulate them.”

“Then we will have no problem you and I, yes?” Zevran’s smile finally reached his eyes and Fenris felt some of the tension that had built in his body slowly seep out.

“I do not trust you,” Fenris told him plainly. “You say one thing, but mean another entirely.”

Zevran laughed, the sound clear and full of amusement. “I always speak the truth. I have found by doing so, that most people have a tendency to think I am doing otherwise. Hiding in plain sight.”

“Always?” Fenris shot back

Zevran arched an eyebrow at him. “There are some things that people are better off not knowing. On these things I prefer to simply keep my silence.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nearing the end! There should be three chapters after this one. But I'm usually wrong with how long it will take me to finish a story. ^_^

Aedan’s test of Fenris didn’t come until he had been at the Vigil for two long days. The time was spent with Anders, following the mage around the keep as he wandered the halls, reorienting himself with the place. He had told Fenris that little had changed over the years, but there were subtle differences that threw him off—a painting in a different spot, a room used for another purpose than what he remembered.

Each night they crawled into their bed they shared in the chamber they had been given, their arms wrapped around each other. For all that Anders was once more surrounded by his friends he was just as alone at the Vigil as Fenris was. They had each other and they clung to that knowledge.

Neither made a move to touch the other, as if Anders’ whispered plea against Fenris’ lips had never happened. Fenris knew why. Anders was hoping that the elf wouldn’t pass whatever test the Warden-Commander was going to give him. It angered Fenris that Anders was willing to send Fenris on his way, separating the two of them rather than see him attempt the Joining. But Anders kept his promise and spoke no word on it, choosing instead to wait and see what was to come.

When it happened, Fenris thought he should have known better.

How else would Aedan Cousland, the Hero of Ferelden, test a potential Grey Warden?

Still, when Aedan came striding into the dining hall where most of the Wardens of the keep had amassed for their noonday meal, clad in steel with a shield on his arm and a sword in his hand, Fenris set his jaw and stood from the long bench, abandoning his meal.

Aedan wore no helm, so Fenris saw it clearly when he narrowed his eyes at the elf. “You still want this?” Aedan asked.

The room had gone silent, all eyes on the commander and Fenris. “I do,” Fenris said without hesitation. There would be no going back for him--no matter how many times he was given the opportunity. There could only ever forwards from now one. To go back was to go back to a life that was not his own.

“You have fifteen minutes to get your ass out on the practice field. Bring whatever you want.” Aedan’s lips curled in a grin. “I’m not going to go easy on you, and I expect the same in return.”

Since Aedan was standing behind Nate, he didn’t see the way the archer rolled his eyes at his words.

But Fenris had.

He inclined his head at Aedan in understanding and the commander turned and left the hall.

Nate cleared his throat to garner Fenris’ attention. “Aedan doesn’t go into the Deep Roads anymore,” he said, his voice rife with meaning that Fenris could barely catch.

“Excuse me?” Fenris asked.

“What he’s pussy footing around,” Oghren interrupted from his place next to Nate, “is that the commander likes to fight.”

“Really likes to fight,” Sigrun added from the other side of Nate.

“But it gets the job done,” Velanna said pragmatically from next to Fenris.

“Shit,” Anders muttered from Fenris’ side. He buried his face in his hands. “He doesn’t go into the Deep Roads anymore,”  he repeated, his voice muffled against his palms.

“Nope,” Oghren replied with a dark chuckle.

Anders lowered his hands and tuned horrified eyes on Nate. “He hates bureaucratic nonsense.” He continued on when Nate slowly nodded his head. “And let me guess, without the ability to go out in the field anymore, he’s at the practice field a lot.”

“Every day!” Oghren crowed.

“Beating the recruits and anyone else to a pulp,” Anders continued in resignation.

“The boy has a healthy fighting spirit,” Oghren said in his commander’s defense. “He also takes his responsibilities to the Wardens seriously. Can’t have him getting himself killed going into the Deep Roads all the time. That’s for others to do now. He’s gotta let out all that aggression somehow.”

Anders face became incredulous. “On new recruits? Does he fight every single person that shows up to join now? What in the Void, Nate?” He rounded on Howe. “Don’t tell me you’ve been letting him do this. You’re supposed to be the sane force in this place. How could you have let this happen?”

“ _Me_?” Nate tapped a finger into his own chest. “If you believe I can talk Aedan out of doing _anything_ then your memory is faultier than you think. You weren’t here, Anders.” At this, Anders flinched. “After you left, Aedan came back from Weisshaupt with Zevran and he was unbearable to be around for months.”

“They told him that he needed to take his command more seriously, and that he was wasting an opportunity.” Sigrun scowled at the memory.  “He has the friendship of the king, and allies all over Ferelden. He’s very powerful, but he’s never wanted to use that power.”

“The First Warden had the gall to tell the boy that he needed to shape up, or he was going to be relieved of command.” Oghren snorted in derision. “The boy can’t have that, now can he? So he pulled back from going out into the field and now he spends his days running the Wardens and the Vigil from that study of his. He does paperwork now!”

“He’s giving the First Warden the illusion that he’s doing what he was told, isn’t he?” Anders asked softly.

“Got it in one,” Sigrun said. “But then he turned nasty.”

“He was an ass,” Velanna said baldly. “Snapping at everyone, barking orders.”

“I do not understand,” Fenris finally said. “What does this have to do with—“

“Ask Oghren,” Anders pointed an accusing finger at the dwarf. “My understanding is that it’s his fault.”

“Hey, now!” Oghren stroked through the white and red strands of his beard nervously. “You didn’t know him back then. None of you did. He was angry because everything had been taken from him—his family, his home, his title, the Grey Wardens. He was going to get himself killed at the rate he was going. I only taught him how to harness that anger into making him a better fighter. How was I supposed to know he would take to it so well?”

“I still don’t understand,” Fenris said. “Why would—“

It was Nate who answered. “Fenris, Aedan is a berserker. When he says to not go easy on him, he means it. If you don’t, he might kill you.”

**

Fenris strode grimly out of the keep, the others following quickly behind him. He had his armor on and his greatsword in his hands, the edge gleaming in the uncharacteristically sunny day.

Nate had assured Fenris that Aedan had never killed someone on the practice yard, but that he still needed to be careful and he needed to treat it as a life or death fight, because it just very well may be. There were times when it had been close, when Aedan’s rage had overwhelmed him and his opponent. Those times where a stark reminder, Nate had said, that Aedan was deadly and could become uncontrollable.

Or would be if it were not for Zevran.

The elf was the only one who could bring Aedan out of his bloodlust when it threatened to consume him. He had no fear of Aedan during those times and he knew just what to say and do to bring his lover back to his own mind.

Behind Fenris, he could hear Anders and Nate arguing.

“This is insane,” Anders cried. “ _Really_ , Nate. This is crazy. What could possibly be the point of this?”

“You might not like it, but it’s been beneficial for everyone since he started doing it,” Nate admonished. “The recruits that survive the Joining are damned strong. The point is not to defeat Aedan, because no one ever has, but to survive him. If you can’t do that, then you won’t be able to survive the Deep Roads. The darkspawn won’t show any quarter either.”

“This is barbaric,” Anders hissed.

“This is reality,” Nate shot back. “Aedan gets his outlet and we get Wardens that aren’t going to turn and flee that moment they hear darkspawn scrabbling through the tunnels. It’s happened, Anders. More than you would think. Then what are we supposed to do with them? They’ve survived the Joining so they’re tainted for life. We can’t just send them on their way. If they can’t handle a fight with Aedan, we cut the wheat from the chaff before they even take a sip from the Chalice. They can leave and move on with their lives without the risk of the taint.”

Their voice drifted from his hearing as he reached the practice yard. There was already a large ring of Grey Wardens around the field, waiting in anticipation for the spectacle. They parted as Fenris approached and closed ranks behind him when he entered the field.

Aedan stood in the middle, Zevran next to him. He was an imposing figure in his Grey Warden armor, the sun sparking off of the bright steel. But as he watched Fenris come closer, he turned to the side and muttered something to Zevran. The elf’s eyebrows rose in surprise and a wry smile creased his lip. With a shrug he held out his hands and Aedan gave him his sword and shield.

Fenris halted in his tracks, his bare feet kicking up dust. He watched as Aedan used his teeth to yank at the straps of one of his gauntlets and the piece of armor dropped to the dirt, as if the armor didn’t cost more than what most people would see in a lifetime. Soon the rest of his armor joined the first, until Aedan was left clad in his plain brown tunic, matching breeches, and booted feet.

For a moment, Fenris was insulted. Did Aedan think he needed some sort of advantage over him that he felt he needed to fight without his armor? But then he remembered what Zevran had told him days before—fighters knew what to wear in order to gain the advantage in battle. Fenris wore what he did in order to move swiftly across the field. With his armor on, Aedan would be left lurching after Fenris.

He had done it to make himself lighter, the easier to move quickly.

At a sign from Aedan, Wardens darted out to take the armor away. But before the last one could leave the field, Aedan stopped him with a word. He grabbed the hem of his tunic and drew it over his head, tossing it to the Warden who caught it in midair.

Dark hair lay heavy along the thick muscles of Aedan’s chest, trailing down across a tight abdomen before disappearing into his breeches. Scars marred his front—long jagged lines that weaved along thinner more exacting ones. There were also a few uneven, but large circles, remnants of bites from gaping maws. When Aedan turned to retrieve his shield and sword from Zevran, Fenris couldn’t help but notice that his back had considerably less scars than his front.

If Aedan Cousland was ever wounded, it was because he had faced his opponent.

Fenris wondered idly which one of those scars had come courtesy of the Archdemon.

He pushed those thoughts to the side when Aedan turned back towards him.

“Rules are simple,” Aedan called. “We fight until either one of us can’t fight anymore or one of us yields. You can’t handle me, you can’t handle the darkspawn. They are relentless and don’t care about the niceities of battle. Ours is a duty that cannot be forsworn. There is no running from the Wardens of the Grey.” His eyes cut behind Fenris and the elf knew he had glanced at Anders.

Aedan was still angry, Fenris realized. He might be keeping his anger close to his chest, but it was still there, hidden under his relief that Anders was alive and back with them. He also knew from what he had heard of Aedan this day that for the man to keep his anger in check about anything meant that he didn’t want to hurt Anders.

“Agreed,” Fenris told him as he slid his feet apart, bracing his legs and raising his sword in a defensive stance.

He didn’t remember the last time he had fought to prove himself. He had done it for gain freedom for his mother and sister, he had done it because it had been his choice. If he had known what was to come, what Danarius was going to do to him, he didn’t think he would have changed his mind.

Now he had to fight for another chance at a sort of freedom. He would carve a place for himself among the Wardens. He would show them all what a man who was resolved was capable of.

Nate had said that no one had ever beaten Aedan.

Fenris meant to be the first.

He stood his ground, waiting as Aedan walked towards him, the commander’s shield  and sword raised. Although Fenris had never fought a berserker before, he had heard the tales. If he just remained calm, goading Aedan on until the man lost his control. It was a dangerous gamble, but if Fenris was smart about it, he could take him down when Aedan was most vulnerable.

The trick was that berserkers were said to feel little to no pain when they were in the midst of bloodlust. Aedan’s chest and the mass of scars gave testament to that. If Fenris wasn’t careful, he would only create a situation where Aedan no longer cared if the elf lived or died.

But life was a series of gambles. Those he had met in Kirkwall had taught him that.

Anders had taught him that.

His words when he had first met Hawke came to mind. Sometimes you had to turn and face the tiger.

Aedan snarled over the top of his shield. “Come on!”

Fenris’ lips twitched in a mocking smile. “No.”

“Please don’t,” he heard Anders moan from behind him.

“No?” Aedan said incredulously. “Already rethinking this?”

Fenris’ smile only grew and became feral. “I am thinking that you might be the one who needs to reconsider this.” Then came the gamble. “Maybe you should think about the fact that your pretty elf might want to come to someone who is obviously stronger than you.”

A hush fell over the yard at his words, one that was broken by Aedan’s bellow of rage. His pupils dilated until they swallowed the deep brown, turning them into black, angry pits. As he rushed at Fenris, the elf ignited his brands with barely a thought.

**

Everyone spoke at once around Anders.

“What in the Void does he think he’s doing?”

“By the Ancestors, he’s turned blue!”

“Aedan’s going to kill him!”

Anders hadn’t ever seen Fenris fight before and he ignored the clamoring as he watched the two men clash—Fenris a streak of blue light around the practice yard and Aedan a rage filled juggernaut. He winced at the squeal of steel against steel as their blades met, each sliding along the other’s razor sharp edge. Aedan slammed his shield against Fenris’ chest, flinging the elf to land in a plume of dust on his back.

“I’ve got to stop this,” he said as he took a step forward. Several pairs of hands grabbed him, holding him in place.

“Zev’s the only one who can stop this now, Sparkle Fingers,” Oghren said.

There was no logical reason that Fenris should be able to wield his sword the way he did. The thing was massive, almost as tall as the elf himself. Anders had held greatswords in the past, he knew how heavy they were. But Fenris hopped back to his feet with his sword in one hand as if it weighed nothing.

Anders wasn’t the only one to notice that.

“What is he?” Velanna asked with no small amount of awe in her voice.

“He’s Fenris,” Anders answered. What else was he to say? Fenris might have told Aedan and Zevran an edited version of his tale, but it wasn’t Anders’ to say.

The answer seemed to satisfy her as she nodded her head in acceptance.

Fenris and Aedan played a brutal game. They would come together in a clash of steel and snarling teeth, trying to overpower the other before breaking away. It went on for what seemed like an eternity, this endless battle where neither was the obvious victor. Sweat sheened on Aedan’s skin, mingling in the blood from a multitude of cuts along his sides, small wounds that Fenris had inflicted as he passed by the commander, lashing out with sword and claws.

As Anders watched, he became aware of just what Fenris was doing. “He’s trying to wear Aedan down,” he whispered. He was forcing Aedan to come at him on Fenris’ own terms. He was the one that danced around the practice yard. He was the one who urged Aedan to barrel after him with mocking smiles and a beckoning finger.

And always he gave Aedan those small cuts and slices along his ribs, little bits of pain that Aedan couldn’t feel, but would wear his body down, the blood flowing in rivulets over sweat slicked skin.

 But Aedan kept coming.

“It’s not going to work,” Nate said. “You’ve seen Aedan fight. He won’t stop. Unless Fenris can outlast him, he’s only succeeded in making Aedan dangerously angry.”

**

Fenris didn’t think he could keep it up anymore. His lungs burned as he gasped for air. His lip was split from where Aedan had bashed his shield into Fenris’ face, and he had a gash on his arm that throbbed with every rapid beat of his heart. He knew he had at least two cracked ribs, making each breath excruciating.

Aedan acted as if he was just getting started.

Fenris pushed back bangs that were drenched in sweat with his forearm and made a decision. He had wanted to prove himself, but there was one thing he hadn’t wanted to do in order to win.

He needed to do that now. This was already getting out of control and he was faltering.

Fenris lowered his sword as Aedan came at him, letting it fall to the ground from lax fingers. He heard the startled murmurs of those around him and the way Anders screamed his name. With a bit of concentration, his brands flared brighter and he drew his arm back, his fingers outstretched, his claws aimed forward.

When Aedan reached him with his sword raised to strike, his shield dropping for a split second and Fenris moved. He was a blur, but everything around him slowed down as he slipped through the between spaces of the waking world and the Fade. His arm snapped forward, his fingers sinking through fabric, flesh, and bone until his hand was pushed through Aedan’s chest, a bloodless wound unless he willed it otherwise.

He was no mage and did not know how he was able to do it. He could feel the places that made up the world and slip his body between them, manifesting his physical form once more when he desired. He had tested the limits only once in his life, pulling at the collar around his throat, desperate to be free. But whether Danarius had anticipated that Fenris would try, or that he was simply not able to, he didn’t know. He wouldn’t put it past his former master to have spelled the collar so Fenris could not become a ghost and slip his leash.

His fingers curved around Aedan’s heart and everything stopped.

Aedan’s sword clattered to the ground next to Fenris’ and the only sound on the field was his gasped breath of horror and pain. Their eyes locked and Fenris watched as Aedan’s pupils receded, the commander’s mouth slackening in shock.

He never heard Zevran coming, but thenFenris didn’t think he ever would unless the assassin wanted him to. He did feel the point of a dagger at the base of his skull. With a shove Zevran could easily kill him.

“Let him go,” Zevran whispered. “Or else I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Fenris didn’t look away from Aedan when he answered. “If you do, I will take him with me. My power won’t be under my control anymore and my hand will become solid once more. I’ll have his heart.” He didn’t know if that was true or not. As with everything else about his markings, he knew so little.

“His heart is mine,” Zevran hissed.

“I did not want to win this way,” Fenris replied. Carefully, he withdrew his hand. When Aedan was free he dropped to his knees, his hands clutching at his chest as he panted for breath.

Fenris could feel all eyes upon him, but he couldn’t look away from Aedan. He didn’t want to see the horror on the faces of the other Wardens—or that of Anders.

The mage had felt a taste of what Fenris could do, but a part of him felt a bit shamed by it. It would always mark him as other.

Aedan slowly lifted his head to return Fenris’ regard. “That was…” he swallowed audibly. “I yield.”

Then he threw back his head and laughed.


	9. Chapter 9

Anders was furious.

He wasn’t the only one.

Fenris and Aedan were led back to the keep and into the infirmary on the second floor. Anders spared only a glance at the shabby way the place was in before urging Fenris over to an empty cot, Aedan taking the one next to him.

The mage didn’t say a word as he helped Fenris out of his armor, his lips pressing into thinner and thinner lines as the extent of the elf’s injuries were revealed. Next to them, Aedan and Zevran began to argue, their voices rising with each word until they were shouting at each other.

“You’re the one who told me to test him!” Aedan yelled. “Don’t get angry at me, Zev.”

Zevran snarled something in Antivan that Anders was sure hadn’t been complimentary. “You let him goad you. What have I said about this very thing? I would not leave you for another. That you could still become angry at the thought of it…” He bit off the rest of what he was going to say, too angry to continue.

“That,” Aedan snapped, “is not what makes me angry, and you know it. It’s the insinuation that you’re some sexual toy who would…” Aedan slammed a fist into the cot, the old, fragile fabric tearing under the impact. “You’re not a whore, Zev.”

“And what do I care for what people think of me?” Zevran asked. “Their opinion means nothing, yes? I _was_ a whore, Aedan. I’m the son of a whore. I slept with people for what it could give me, not because I wanted to. I sleep with you because it pleases me to do so. Do not pretend that you care what others think of me. This is about your jealousy.”

“Excuse me?” Aedan shot to his feet and loomed over the shorter Zevran. “I am _not_ a jealous person.”

Zevran wasn’t intimidated in the least. “Of course you are,” he scoffed. “So am I. So is everyone. Rare is the person who does not grow jealous when one thinks that another covets what they have. Whether it is wealth or love, we all have a bit of it in us, yes? I just choose to admit it while you are still in denial. But do not worry, my Aedan. We will have the esteemed Anders heal you, and then you can take me back to our room and fuck me until I scream the walls down. I will do things to you that will have you remembering that I do not go so easily to another anymore. Maybe you will remember this next time someone tries to goad you into carelessness by using me, yes?”

Someone cleared their throat and Fenris tore his eyes away from the spectacle. Anders had his hands over Fenris’ right arm, sealing the deep gash that had sliced through to muscle on his forearm. Nate and Velanna had followed them into the infirmary. The room was long, with a series of cots set up along one wall, while tables with dried herbs and dusty potion bottles lined the other. He hadn’t seen them come in.

“Just get over it, Aedan. It’s bad enough we’ll have to hear him screaming for the evening.” Velanna crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes.

Nate looked up at the ceiling as if he was beseeching the Maker for intervention. “I think we should talk about what Fenris just did,” he said as he tried to steer the conversation to something more pertinent. “After you’re both healed that is.” His gaze dropped back down.

Anders abruptly jerked his hands away from Fenris. He closed them into fists and sat down heavily at the edge of Fenris’ cot. Closing his eyes, he buried his face in his hands. “I can’t,” he mumbled softly, the admission ripped out of him.

Sitting up, Fenris placed a hand on Anders’ back. He felt how tense the muscles were under his palm. He glanced down to his wound, but he already knew what he would see.

The wound was still raw and slowly seeping blood. He could see through the mess that Anders had been able to close the cut into the muscle, but he hadn’t been able to heal any higher than that. They both knew this had been coming, this proof that Anders’ healing magic had been diminished. But they had still held out hope.

That hope was gone now.

“What are you—“ Aedan started.

“He cannot heal as he used to,” Fenris said abruptly. “When Justice left, he took more than just Anders’ memories. He took some of his ability to heal.”

“Pardon?” Aedan said slowly. “When the fuck were you two going to tell me this?”

“How could I?” Anders lifted his head from his hands and looked back at Aedan from over his shoulder. His eyes were haunted, a desperate pleading for Aedan to understand. “I was always your healer. From the first moment we met, that’s what I was to you.

“Did you know that’s what saved me from being made Tranquil, or losing my head? I was so damned good at it that the Circle didn’t want to lose such a valuable asset. Do you honestly think they would have let any other mage escape as many times as I did and let them live?” Anders laughed with no small amount of derision. “They hated me, but they couldn’t kill me. Now what the fuck do I have? I couldn’t tell you, Aedan. I just… I just wanted everything to go back to the way it was. The way it was before I apparently screwed up my life even more than I thought I was capable of. I want my life back!”

The room fell into a shocked silence as Anders’ words echoed through the cavernous chamber. Heedless of who was watching, Fenris slid forward and leaned his forehead between Anders’ shoulder blades, his arms coming up to slip around the mage’s waist. He could do nothing for him. There were no words of comfort he could give, no advice he could say. But he could give him this, this closeness despite that others were watching it happen. With his eyes closed he could block them out, making the urge to shy away from such an open display of affection that much easier to fight.

It was Velanna who broke the silence.

“What did he leave you?” Just a simple question to ask, but the answer and the meaning behind it was much more complicated. They knew what she was asking them, this dalish mage who knew about the secret ways of magic and the world around her.

“He?” Nate asked.

“Justice,” she said simply. Fenris felt Anders flinch at the name. “He left something behind, didn’t he? That’s how things work. You can’t take without leaving a bit of yourself. It’s why blood magic requires the sacrifice of your own blood to cast. It’s why the demons promise things in return for passage out of the Fade. There is always a give and take. So what did he leave you?”

It came to Fenris then, a realization that struck him like a blow, sending him reeling and jerking back from Anders. He knew. He knew what Justice had gone, what he had given in exchange for Anders’ memories and for a portion of his healing magic.

His arms flexed and squeezed tightly around the mage’s waist when he felt Anders take a breath to answer, effectively cutting the mage off.

“He gave Anders a way to protect himself,” Fenris said. “He gave him a way to make sure that a Templar would never touch him.”

Anders sucked in a sharp breath. He twisted his body so that he faced Fenris. “One of them came first,” he whispered in understanding. “The healing magic or the memories. He had to take one with him in exchange for leaving me.”

“You were left vulnerable.” Fenris glanced down at the wound on his arm. The blood had finally stopped oozing. “So he gave you something to protect yourself with, and took something else in return.”

“That’s the way of things,” Velanna agreed. “There must be balance. The Creators demand it.”

“What do you mean by protect himself?” Aedan said. Fenris wasn’t the only one who had still been bleeding. Blood streaked down his sides, dripping into the waist of his breeches and staining the cloth a rusty red.

“We aren’t sure,” Anders admitted. “It’s only happened the one time. We don’t even know if that’s what’s going on and—“

“Show me,” Aedan interrupted.

“What?” Anders blinked up at him. “I can’t… I don’t even know what triggers it. When it happened before I could have killed Fenris.” Fenris snorted in disbelief and Anders turned back to him. “I could have! I threw you through a chair. This can’t—“

“Show me,” Aedan said again. At Anders incredulous look, Aedan crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t give me that look, Anders. Let’s see what we’re dealing with. What did Justice leave you? What happens precisely?”

**

Anders stared at his commander. He’d heard Aedan Cousland say many things that made him question his sanity, and this had to be right up there with ‘We’re going down into a pit to kill the Mother’ and ‘Hey, let’s put these dragon bones into this summoning circle’.

“Aedan, I can’t just… I got a small taste of what I became—what Justice and I had become. We were so angry and I don’t think I can control it. I think he left that anger behind. It’s… It’s frightening.”

Anders glanced down at his hands. Those damned hands that had once held the power to bring hope when there was none. What was he now? It wasn’t as if he was weak when it came to casting other spells, Anders had never been humble when it came to his power. He knew what he was capable of, what his limits were. Velanna had spoken of balance and Anders knew it was true. He had been lucky that he’d had the ability to kill as easily as he had been able to heal. Now he felt off balance, his world teetering on its side. He had always taken pride in his healing magic, his knowledge gained from years of sneaking illegal books about anatomy, and from his experience in a battlefield. He had even apparently opened a clinic in Kirkwall, doing what he had always wanted to under the nose of the Templars.

Now what did he have? What use was he?

He would have to watch those he cared about succumb to pain he had once been able to sooth, wounds that might fester, sicknesses that might kill or maim. He would have to watch and know that he was powerless to stop it.

Just as he would be powerless to stop what the Joining might do to Fenris.

The room had fallen into silence as Anders stared down at his hands, as if he could will the power that had once graced his fingertips to return, giving him a portion of himself back.

“The Templars,” Fenris said softly, pulling Anders from where he had retreated to. “It happened when you remembered what had befallen Karl. It is your rage against the Templars that triggers it.”

“That’s just lovely,” Anders said as he abruptly shot to his feet. “A lot of good that’ll do me in the Deep Roads. Maybe we can dress the darkspawn up as Templars and then let me loose among them.” He couldn’t stop himself, his agitation spilling from his mouth in snide comments that his lips couldn’t seal in. He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. We could kidnap a Templar and hide him in a sack. If we need me to actually be useful for once, you lot can pull him out and wave him in front of my like a red flag with a bronto.”

“Anders—“

He acted as if Fenris hadn’t spoken. “Maybe… Maybe I could just return to the Circle. I could be part of a ‘don’t deal with Fade spirits or demons’ lecture. That’ll be useful, don’t you think?”

“Anders—“ Nate said.

“In fact, I should pack my stuff and turn myself in right now. I’ll beg them for the Rite of Tranquility.” His laughter was derisive. “I don’t even think they’ll take me. Not much use for one of the Tranquil who can’t enchant or heal. They probably would just kill me on sight. I’m sure they still have warrants for my arrest.”

“Anders!” Aedan bellowed. “Shut it!”

Anders couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop the torrent of thoughts, the chaotic images of what he had become and what his life was going to be like from now on, things that he’d put off ruminating on during the voyage to Ferelden. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t hear. His world narrowed down to his grief over losing a fundamental part of himself, the one good thing that he could contribute to this world.

It was gone.

Anders was selfish, vain, and a scapegrace who relied only on himself, but one who could heal.

There was no small amount of narcissism in Anders’ healing. He had always known it, but no one cared why the healer was casting spells, just that he did it, their gratitude the same.  It was one of the most selfish, but selfless at the same time, thing he ever did.

Anders’ stomach rolled. What if Fenris’ wound festered? What if he lost his arm because Anders had finally made one too many mistakes in his life?

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Anders mumbled. Hands touched his arm and gently pulled, dragging Anders to sit back down.

“I have seen you destroy a group of Carta in a rain of fire,” Fenris said, his voice so quiet, that Anders was forced to strain to hear him. He thought that the elf had done it on purpose, giving Anders something to concentrate on.

“Carta?” Anders rasped.

“A group of dwarves,” Fenris replied. “But that does not matter. The point is that you are far from useless. You are not defined by a single skill. Just as I am not defined by what my markings give me the ability to do.”

There had been a slight catch to Fenris’ voice, as if he was just realizing something himself.

“They look like vallaslin,” Velanna said. “But they are so far removed from true blood writing, that they are a mockery. Are they what give you the ability to partially walk the Fade?”

That bit of Anders’ selfishness crept back in. he was glad that Velanna had changed the subject and turned everyone’s attention on Fenris instead. But when he felt Fenris’ hand briefly tighten on his arm he remembered just how much the elf hated scrutiny.

Zevran sighed and walked over to Anders. He leaned down and grasped the arm that Fenris wasn’t holding, tugging lightly and urging him to his feet. “Come. We are well stocked and these two need to have their wounds cleaned and sewn. This is something I would do very badly, no? So I need you to help me with it. I am sure you have stitched together an injury before. Tell me how it should be done.”

Zevran’s words tripped something in Anders’ mind. Not only did he know basic skills in healing without magic, but he knew the body inside and out. Even without healing magic, he could determine what was wrong and how to fix it—he’d been doing it for years. Some of the finer details might be lost to him now, the ease of using his power to prove what his training had already told him, the way he would use his magic to speed up the healing, but Anders hadn’t lost his innate skill and the years of hands on training he had.

“Please tell me the stores look better than the infirmary,” Anders said lightly. He felt another squeeze on his arm before Fenris’ hand fell away, letting Anders move to a small door off to the side of the room.

**

Anders had finished with the last stitch and he tied off the silk thread before reaching out his hand blindly for the healing potion he would spread over the wound on Fenris’ arm.

“More Tevinter slaves should come to the dalish,” Velanna said. She sat on the edge of the cot that Aedan occupied. She had kept Fenris talking as Anders had worked, keeping his mind on something else besides the pain.

Not that Fenris showed that he was in pain.

Anders had seen to Aedan first. Although he had more injuries, his cuts were shallow and had only required cleaning and a bandage soaked in healing potion. Zevran and Nate had dragged chairs over to the cots to listen and fetch anything Anders might need as Fenris and Velanna spoke.

At first, Fenris’ answers were short, bitten off words. As time went by and he began to see that Velanna was asking not to satisfy her own curiosity, but because she actually knew what she was talking about, he opened up more, his words becoming less harsh.

Anders had smiled to himself as he had cleaned Fenris’ wound and stitched it close. The elf liked to pretend that he didn’t know how to make friends, but Anders knew better. Fenris’ problem was in trusting. Once he did he was fine.

He dribbled some healing potion from a vial that Nate had handed to him and watched as it became less red around the edges, the potion taking away some of the pain and going to work.

He could do this.

He could still be what he was. He just had to go about it in a different way.

The relief had his smile widening as he held out his hand again, a roll of bandages pressed into his palm.

“Do not think that has not been tried,” Fenris told her. “I have heard tales of how the dalish treat city elves, I have seen it for myself. Your kind expects slaves that have only ever known their master’s house to be able to survive in the wild. It does not end well.”

Velanna snorted. “Then they were going to the wrong clan. My clan would have taken them in and treated them better. The elven slaves of Tevinter are our long lost brethren from Arlathan. We wish to once more be reunited with our brothers and sisters.”

Fenris closed his eyes as he lay back against the cot, his arm in Anders’ lap. “That is neither here nor there. What did you mean when you said that these markings have made me closer to the Fade? Do you know what was done to me?”

“No,” she replied honestly. “But I do know that if one uses old magic of the Elvhen and lyrium, then it has to do with the Fade. I don’t know how much history of your people you were taught, but—“

“Not my people,” Fenris said.

“But,” Velanna continued on, “the magisters stole knowledge from them. The way the markings were made on your body, they are not from any vallaslin that I have seen. I take back what I said earlier. I don’t think they were done to make a mockery. You should let me study your body sometime so I can work them out.”

Zevran choked from his place next to her and she slowly turned to shoot him a glare. “Don’t you dare.”

The assassin held up his hands in mock innocence. “Me? I said nothing about you telling Fenris that you wanted to study his body.”

Anders tied off the bandage and held out a hand again. This time a dagger was slapped hilt first into his palm. He trimmed the ends of the bandage and sat back, examining his work.

He knew.

He knew without his magic to tell him that the wound would heal well. He tentatively held his hand over the bandage and let magic flow through his fingers. It wasn’t what it once was, but it was enough to help with the healing process.

He glanced up to meet Fenris’ eyes and a grin spread across his lips.

One that was quickly wiped away.

“Once you’re healed you can attempt the Joining,” Aedan said. “We don’t know if physical wellness has anything to do with survival rate, but we can’t be too careful.”

“Thanks, Aedan,” Anders muttered.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Contrary to popular belief, Anders wasn’t averse to doing hard work. He had spent his childhood in the Anderfels living in a tiny village among a hardened people. From the moment he could, his mother and father had expected him to contribute—whether it was gathering fuel for the fire that constantly burned in the hearth in the center of their hut, or helping his mother with chores, he had done his part. He had known no other life.

When he had entered the Circle, life had gotten easier in a multitude of ways. He was able to sleep in just a little bit more, no longer having to wake before dawn. He’d had chores, but it hadn’t been the grueling work he had known in the Anderfels. But easier did not mean better, and Anders had learned quickly enough that although he was fed better than he ever had been as a child and he had shoes on his feet and new clothes on his back, that it all had come at a horrible price.

For Anders and other children with similar backgrounds, the Circle had been a gilded cage, a pretty prison where the mages were lulled into complacency by full bellies and the façade of safety. Older mages and those that had been brought to the Circle younger than Anders had been knew no other life. They didn’t understand exactly how wrong the Circle was.

Anders did many things to make his time in the Circle pass more quickly. When he had discovered the joys of love, he had been dedicated to pleasing himself and those he’d been with. He made sure that he wouldn’t fade into the background, a mage that one morning was just gone from their beds, a disappearance that went unnoticed by the others for days.

Not Anders.

If he went missing there would be mages asking questions. He made friends easily, but had few he could call a good friend in return. He made jokes, laughed, loved, and was a general nuisance around the Tower.

His plan had backfired in two ways--the Templars knew to look out for him and any trouble he might cause, and he had the distinction of being on perpetual punishment.

But it never really was that much of a punishment.

Anders knew what it was like to go with very little food and sleep. He had spent a large portion of his childhood doing labor that others would have crumbled under.

Clean the small chantry?

Scrub every step in the Tower?

Dust all of the books in the library?

He did every single one without complaint. The cleaning helped get his mind off of where he was and the futility of his situation. When his arms burned and sweat rolled down his spine, Anders was able to become absorbed in the here and now and not dwell on the twists and turns his life had taken the moment he had burned down his family’s barn in a fit of spontaneous magic.

It wasn’t until his penultimate escape and then capture that they had devised a way to punish him properly.

That year he had spent alone with his thoughts had almost been his undoing. Anders could admit that he hadn’t come out of his cell completely stable—not for a long time. If it hadn’t been for the Grey Wardens, Anders might have just let Ser Rylock hang him from the nearest tree. Better that than to go back into the dark and quiet with nothing but his mind for company.

So when Anders’ mind became chaotic with twisting, dark thoughts, he did one of three things—he ran, he fucked, he worked.

He wasn’t going to run—not anymore. It had been a week since Fenris and Aedan had fought, and the elf had been recovered for the last two days.

So Anders worked.

He attacked the infirmary with a vengeance, working from the moment he rose and wolfed down a plate of food, until well past dark each day. The people of the keep left him to it, a taciturn agreement that Anders was going to get the infirmary in order whether they wanted him to or not.

Frankly, Anders thought that Aedan was happy to let someone take charge of the place. No one else had seemed to.

He understood it now, why he had opened the clinic in Kirkwall. There had always been a secret part of him that had wanted to do something like that, but had never thought it possible. But Justice and his childlike dreams hadn’t been the only reason.

He hadn’t been able to run in Kirkwall.

He daren’t get close to anyone.

So there had been one recourse.

Anders’ coat was draped over a chair he’d dragged into the infirmary—one of several, taken from various storerooms in the keep. Most of the cots had been dismantled and repaired, a few even outright thrown out. The floors had been swept and scrubbed—twice. Every surface in the long chamber had been cleaned and then cleaned again, until his back ached and the skin of his hands were red and raw.

The storerooms had been gone through and catalogued.

He had compiled a list of what he needed and given it to Aedan.

A request had been made for any mages that joined the Wardens to be handed over to him soon after their Joining for training.

A week. He had been working solid for a week and his self-appointed task was almost complete. Already he could feel dark thoughts creeping into his mind, sinking talons of despair and doubt deep into his psyche.

Anders sat on the floor and ran his fingers over a leg of one of the worktables. It was a bit wobbly and he needed to level it before it collapsed and took health potions to the floor with it.

Tomorrow.

Fenris was going to attempt the Joining tomorrow.

For all that Anders had told him that wanted one night with the elf first, he was hesitant to follow through.

He was frightened.

He knew himself well enough to admit when something terrified him. Whether he spoke of it was another matter entirely. In the time they had been together, Anders and Fenris had shared more of themselves than they had ever had with anyone else. The trading of secrets and truth was so easy with Fenris.

It shouldn’t be.

Anders was aware of how rare it was for Fenris to trust anyone with even a small part of himself. He was the same way, both of them having learned the hard way that people would use you if they got inside too deeply, that sometimes the heartache wasn’t worth the opening of the door. Out of everyone, they understood what it was like to lose years of your life, to have to run for the basic need to be free. There were no fumbled explanations needed from Anders—Fenris understood.

And now Anders might lose that. He might lose the way those green eyes softened when they were alone, or how they curled up together each night, clinging to each other in a world that wanted to separate them.

Anders gasped out a sob and scrubbed at his face. No. he wasn’t going to do this. He wasn’t going to take this away from Fenris. This was why he had been occupying himself with the clinic, so that he wouldn’t spend his every waking moment pleading with Fenris not to do this.

Fenris was giving him his space, which Anders was grateful for. He spent most of his time with Velanna of all people, the two of them often found in deep conversation. Anders’ lips twitched in a weak smile. It made sense when he thought about it. At first he had assumed that the two of them would clash, two stubborn forces colliding, but they had forged a bond out of that stubbornness and strong opinions.

They terrified the rest of the keep.

Anders realized he had been staring sightlessly at the table leg for some time, his fingers frozen on the scarred wood.

What was he doing?

He was spending his last days with Fenris alone in the infirmary. If something went wrong, he would regret that he hadn’t…

Anders shot to his feet and hurried out of the room.

He hadn’t even bothered to grab his coat.

 **

“Why have the clans not banded together to free our brothers and sisters from Minrathous?” Velanna asked. It hadn’t been a question for Fenris, but he answered anyway.

“Because they would be crushed within a day. Even if they managed to make it to the capitol, the great walls and the Juggernauts would stop them. Do you know how many Exalted Marches have been sent to Minrathous? At least two that I can think of off the top of my head. If the combined force of the Chantry and its fervent followers could not manage to do it, then it would be impossible for the clans. No, unless all of Thedas comes together to destroy the Imperium, it will never happen. Do not underestimate a magister desperate to keep what they see as theirs. They turn on each other at the slightest provocation. What do you think they would stoop to if their way of life was threatened?”

Velanna and Fenris sat on the ground in the practice field, their backs against a wall of the keep. They absently watched Aedan pummel some of the more daring Wardens that had come to challenge him. The two elves had had this conversation more than once—Velanna had questions about the Imperium and the elven slaves. She had told him that the clans knew of them, but she had always traveled through Ferelden and had never met anyone from Tevinter before.  What the dalish knew of the Imperium was only told in stories of the Fall of Arlathan. The elven slaves still in Tevinter were distant to them—in memory and in miles.

“Magisters are disgusting,” Velanna sneered. “They take ancient magic and corrupt them. It’s not because they are mages, but because they are _shemlen_. They have no respect for the gifts they were given by the Elvhen. Blood magic and perversions…” Velanna snorted in derision. “They think they can barter with demons as if they were creatures to be reasoned with. I would dearly love to see the rate of how many magisters were devoured instantly.

Fenris laughed. He liked Velanna, mage or no. A part of him wondered if he had ever made his way to Ferelden and her clan, how much life would have been different. But he had never been cut out for life as a dalish elf. The clans further north were less willing to take on an elf from the city, let alone one that was fleeing the Imperium. He remembered how one of Merrill’s clan had announced to Hawke that the dalish were the last of the Elvhen. It was a common sentiment that never ceased to anger Fenris. Most of the clans liked to forget they had brethren in the cities and in captivity.

His thoughts made him less cautious when he spoke next. “There are families of elven slaves who have been there since before the Fall of Arlathan,” he said as he watched Aedan down another opponent. “Families that might have more claim to Arlathan heritage than most of the dalish clans.”

Velanna sucked in a sharp breath and he froze. “You…” she sputtered.

Fenris glanced down at his hands. He knew he should not have said it, but it was a thought he’d had for a very long time, one that came to mind instantly as a retort whenever the subject of Tevinter and Arlathan came up.

“I had not thought of that,” Velanna finally admitted. “There would be slaves in Tevinter that have as much of a claim on Elvhen blood as the rest of us do. It is hard for some of the dalish to admit that. We hold on tightly to the belief that living in the city means you have lost some of your Elvhen nature. City elves live less long than the rest of us because of the contact with the _shemlen_. Then there is intermingling of the races, half-elven children.”

“Do you look down on them?” Fenris asked.

“No,” Velanna replied. “They live a hard life between worlds. It is not my place to give them more suffering. I look down on the human half of their parentage. I have rarely seen that end happy. Humans still see us as less than, as if we weren’t here first and gave them the power they have now.”

Fenris looked over at her and quirked his lips in a small smile. “The magisters say that the Elvhen were weak and that they were conquered because the Imperium had divine right. They were the stronger and more cunning species and natural law dictates that the stronger always devour the weak.”

Velanna stared at him incredulously. “What rot! A magister wouldn’t know natural law if it rose up and bit them on the ass. They are thieves. They steal land, knowledge, power, and then corrupt it.” She glanced down at some of Fenris’ bare flesh that peeked through his armor. “They inflict suffering for their own selfish gains. _Shemlen_ ,” she spat, “always taking. They took our capitol, they took our lands. When they gave us a few of those lands back and we founded the Dales, they sent an Exalted Amrch against us. Never think they do not fear us,” she told him. “Why else would they keep us wandering and lost?”

“What about the grey Wardens?” he asked her.  He smiled to himself at her version of what had happened to the Dales. The Exalted March came about after elven armies were on the doorstep of Val Royeaux. Although the humans had started the war, the elves had made sure to hit the chantry at its heart.  Some of Danarius’ friends had loved to debate history and Fenris had been an unwilling student as he had silently served drinks. “You are surrounded by _shemlen_ , you follow one into battle.”

“I follow Aedan Cousland because he had promised me revenge.” Velanna paused and Fenris could see she was choosing her next words carefully. “He gave it to me in his own way. I respect that, although I was angry at the time. The Grey Wardens have a task that goes beyond humans and elves. I want to be a part of that.”

“And you get to kill _shemlen_ without worrying that the humans will hunt you down.” Fenris quirked an eyebrow at her.

Velanna laughed. “Only the ones Aedan tells me to.”

**

Anders burst out onto the practice yard, his eyes scanning the small crowd. He spotted Velanna and Fenris talking across the field and something inside of him squeezed painfully. Fenris had a small smile on his lips and he said something that sent Velanna into peals of laughter.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. _You’re paranoid_ , he told himself. _Fenris is allowed to have friends outside of you. They can be elves. They can be beautiful women. He’s allowed to make them laugh. It doesn’t have to mean anything._

But jealousy ate at him anyway, worming its way into his heart. Anders had never been a jealous person before. There had been no room for it in the Circle. Whether or not he had become one during his years in Kirkwall, he didn’t know. He knew it wasn’t fair of him to be resentful towards Velanna. Anders had been the one to push Fenris away for the past week and Fenris needed to learn to make friends with the other Wardens.

Still, the ugly emotion was there, crawling inside Anders and whispering words of self-doubt.

Anders exhaled and opened his eyes before striding over to them. He came to a halt mere inches in front of them and the two elves stopped their conversation and looked up at him simultaneously.

“Anders,” Velanna said by way of greeting.

Anders cleared his throat. “Velanna… Are the two of you having a good time?” He visibly winced at his biting tone. This wasn’t what he had come here to do. This wasn’t like him.

Velanna rolled her eyes at him. “Really? Are you really going to do this?”

He shifted from one foot to another while Fenris watched silently. “I uh…” Anders groaned. “No. No I’m not. Sorry.” He glanced down at Fenris. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Fenris glanced over to Velanna and then back at Anders. “I am all yours.” He stood up and brushed the dirt off his breeches before gesturing to Anders to lead the way.

Anders swallowed and some of the tension leaked out of him at Fenris’ words. He was being childish, worrying after a love’s affections as if Fenris hadn’t shown him in hundreds of small ways that he wanted Anders.

He gave Velanna an apologetic smile and saluted her before grabbing Fenris by the hand and taking him back into the keep. He would worry about his uncharacteristic feelings later.

 


	11. Chapter 11

Something was wrong with Anders. The mage had Fenris’ wrist in a grip so tight, that Fenris could feel it through his gauntlet. He half led, half dragged Fenris through the keep and up a series of stairs, striding quickly towards their chamber.

Fenris’ eyes narrowed on the back of Anders’ neck and the space of bare flesh he could see between the collar of his tunic and the ragged ends of his hair. He watched as the thinnest of cracks appeared on the mage’s pale skin, seeping a dull blue light. His eyes snapped down to the hand on his wrist. Faint lines had begun to spider-web across the back of Anders’ hand.

“Anders!” Fenris said sharply. The mage acted as if he didn’t hear Fenris—maybe he truly couldn’t. Fenris’ eyes darted to the sides of the corridor. Vigil’s Keep was always busy, bustling with servants, Wardens, and guests. He couldn’t chance confronting Anders where others might be caught in the crossfire if it turned ugly.

Anders rounded a corner and halted long enough in front of the heavy wooden door to their chamber to push it open before hauling Fenris inside. Fenris kept his eyes on Anders while he kicked the door shut with a bare foot. The two men stood in the middle of the small room, Anders’ back to Fenris, the mage’s hands clenched into fists at his side, his head bowed.

“What’s wrong with me?” Anders rasped. His voice almost sonorous.

“What happened?” Fenris asked him. He quickly began to undo the straps on his gauntlets, slipping them one at a time from his hands and setting them gently on the side table near the door. The rest of his armor joined them. “Anders!” He barked when no answer had been forthcoming. “What happened?”

Anders whirled around on Fenris, his eyes blazing with blue fire. “She thinks she can take you from me!”

Fenris took an involuntary step back before he steeled himself. “Mage, you need to calm yourself. No one is taking me from you.” Fenris took another step back and reached behind him. His fingers tripped over the lock and slid it home. He didn’t know if anyone was going to come if they heard fighting, but he didn’t want interference. Anders was volatile like this and a new presence might make it worse, a new face to unleash his anger on.

Anders groaned and clutched his head in his hands, spearing his fingers through his hair and dislodging the thong that held the strands back. “This isn’t like me. I just can’t… When I saw the two of you together I just… But on the way here I couldn’t help but picture it. I want… “ He flicked his eyes up and pinned Fenris in place with his gaze. “I want to tear her apart.”

Sucking in his breath through his teeth, Fenris took the few steps he needed to stand in front of Anders. “You were never a jealous man, Anders,” he said. “Not the mage I knew.”

Anders laughed then, and the sound sent a chill down Fenris, cold fingers that traced over his spine and lodged in his heart. “I remember. I remember how Isabela would drape herself on you. I remember how angry I would become.” His voice deepened with each word. “I remember wanting so badly and hating her for it.”

Fenris had never claimed to know much about magic. He could, though, see a pattern for what it was and what it meant. “Anders,” he said, forcing calmness in his voice he didn’t feel, “Justice did not take your memories.”

“What?” Anders’ eyebrows drew down sharply and the fire in his eyes flickered. “What are you—“

“You still have some of them, but they are locked away. He used your memories and feelings as a trigger and augmented them, warping them. It is how the two of you connected before, in times of great emotion. When you feel threatened or when your emotions are uncontrollable, you—“

“Become what I was once,” Anders whispered. The mage groaned and collapsed to his hands and knees. “But he did take some of them from me. Didn’t he?”

Fenris closed his eyes before sinking to the floor in front of Anders. “I cannot say. That’s a question you must ask of Velanna.”

But Fenris knew the answer to that. There had been a price to pay and Justice had taken it in most of Anders’ memories of his time in Kirkwall. What the mage had been left with was anything that could be used to bring a part of Vengeance to the fore.

“I can’t.” Anders sat back on his knees and buried his head in trembling hands. “Maker, I’m so angry at her right now. I know neither of you did… did anything… but I’m still so angry.”

Fenris touched Anders, sliding his bare fingers over the scruff along the mage’s jaw and lifting his face from his hands, forcing Anders to look at him.

“I cannot take this from you,” he said honestly. “I cannot make this better for you. I cannot stop it from happening. I can tell you once more that the anger you’re feeling is obscuring the truth that you know deep down. You can either make the conscious decision to succumb to it, or you can decide to rise above it. It is a choice you must make on your own.”

“As you’ve had to?” Anders asked. Some of his own tone had slipped back into his voice, the iridescent blue in his eyes, dimming.

“As I am _learning_ to,” Fenris amended.

Anders snorted in surprised laughter. “We’re a pair, you and I.” He closed his eyes and took a slow, fortifying breath before opening them. Clear, warm brown eyes peered back at him. The small smile that had formed on Anders’ lips slipped away. “I’m volatile like this. How am I to know what will trigger me and what won’t?”

“Trial and error like the rest of us. But if you wish to know how to control it, then I am the last person to be talking to. You do know two people in the keep that are masters at harnessing their rage, though.”

“Wait… Do you mean Aedan and Oghren?” Anders threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, yeah. They both are masters at that.”

“More so than either I or you,” Fenris replied archly.

“That’s how Justice became corrupted, wasn’t it?” Anders asked. Fenris didn’t reply, it was a question Anders already knew the answer to. “I hate what was done to me—what is done to every single mage in Thedas. I hate and I hate and I kept it inside for so long. What was the point of staying angry? It only ever got mages killed—either by the templars or their own hand. I wasn’t going to end up like that.”

“You chose a form of apathy instead,” Fenris said.

”Yeah… Yeah I did. A lot of good that did me. I thought if I didn’t care what was happening to other mages then I wouldn’t end up like them. I just wanted to be left alone. I plugged my ears and just kept running.”

“We all do things to survive without thinking of the consequences,” Fenris said softly.

A silent understanding passed between them. It was the knowledge that they were two men who had done things they weren’t proud of in order to survive and keep their sanity, holding onto parts of themselves desperately while the rest was ripped away, one painful portion at a time.

“I love you,” Anders finally said. “I get it now, why I… why I did what I did in order to have you look at me. I would like to think I would’ve done it anyway, but you were the catalyst. I wonder sometimes if I knew what I was going to lose in the process, and if I wanted that too—if I wanted to go back to a me that hadn’t made one too many mistakes and had been on the road to being the sort of man I had always wanted to be.

“I made a mistake with Justice. But I know me and I just wanted to—“

“To survive and remain free,” Fenris finished for him.

They fell silent once more. It lacked any sort of awkwardness, or the need to fill the empty spaces with words. Hadn’t Anders just been thinking that this was one of the many reasons he loved Fenris? The elf understood without Anders having to explain. It was rare that Anders got to meet mages outside of the Circle. They were the only other ones who would have understood what it was like. He had always kept himself away from them—too many mages in a group would have garnered attention he hadn’t wanted as an apostate.

Now Anders had to wonder if he had only had a conversation like this sooner, purged some of his anger and resentment, that maybe…

No, it wouldn’t have mattered. His anger went too deeply. It was so far down in his psyche that even _he_ hadn’t been completely aware of it. It seemed it had taken a spirit of the Fade to find it and bring all of the ugliness to light.

Fenris leaned forward and touched his forehead to Anders, swamping the mage’s vision with deep green. “You do realize that if I am the voice of reason in this relationship then we have a problem.”

Anders snorted in laughter. “Love, your reasoning is usually like Aedan’s—you see a problem and you give harsh truths or you kill it.”

“True,” Fenris’ lips quirked into a small smile. “In this we are alike.” He curled his fingers around the back of Anders’ neck, absently stroking the slowly relaxing muscles.  “We have been sleeping together for weeks now,” he abruptly said.

Anders huffed out another laugh. “Not in the way I would wish.”

Fenris hummed softly. “That I do not doubt. I… We have not spoken of it. I am glad that we have not… I needed time and you gave it to me without having to ask it of you.”

He closed his eyes and then forced them open again. He couldn’t hide away from Anders, not now. Fenris knew he could be a coward. He shied away from his softer feelings, unable to express them properly and fumbling with the words. It had always been easier to deal with anger and pain—they were emotions that he was well acquainted with.

He couldn’t hide anymore.

“I hated myself for wanting you,” he admitted. “Then you kissed me and I thought it was some trick, a way to laugh at my expense. I know now that you would never have done that, not then and not now. I did not take into account what it must have taken for you to come to me as you had. You would have had to fight Justice in order to do so. And then again in order to separate the two of you. You did this not because I had asked it of you, but because you loved me. No one has ever gone to such extremes for me before.”

“I wouldn’t have done it to make you grateful,” Anders whispered harshly.

“I know,” Fenris assured him. “It’s not gratitude I feel, but it was proof of your devotion that…” He swallowed heavily. “You do not wish for me to become a Warden, not because you do not think me worthy, but because you do not wish to see my life cut short. Yet you have held your tongue as you promised. I…” His eyes skittered away from Anders before jerking back. “I care for you greatly, Anders. More than…”

“I know, love,” Anders whispered. “I know…”

He didn’t need Fenris to say the words. It was in a thousand little things he had done since the moment Anders had woken up in a strange city. It was in his voice whenever he spoke of the guilt he felt in Anders performing the ritual. It was in his eyes whenever he looked at the mage, hard chips that softened when their gazes met.

There would be time for the words later—Anders was going to make sure of it. He refused to let Fenris die in the Joining, one of thousands of potential Grey Wardens who’d had their lives snuffed out too soon. If Anders had to, he would go to the Black City itself and demand that the Maker return and give Fenris back to him. Until then, he would watch over the elf when he finally sipped from the Joining cup.

When their lips met it was with an exhaled sigh on Fenris’ part. As with all of their kisses it wasn’t tentative or questing, but a knowing press of lips and glide of tongues. They knew each other now, inside and out. Anders knew the shape of Fenris’ body against him, how the elf would stiffen when he was in the throes of a nightmare and how he his body would slowly relax when Anders pulled him close, rubbing a comforting hand down his back. He knew that Fenris had a plethora of subtle expressions, each telling in their own way if one knew how to look for them.

He knew what made Fenris laugh.

He knew what would make him cry.

Anders _knew_ him, a muscle memory created through years of being together that Justice could never take away.

Anders had to believe that.

Fenris’ hand tightened on the back of Anders’ neck as the kiss deepened. He held Anders in place as the mage’s mouth widened in order to take what Fenris gave to him as if Anders would even think about going anywhere as Fenris took command of the kiss, dominating the mage with small bites and soothing licks.

 When the kiss finally broke Anders was left gasping for air that seemed to have been sucked out of the room. Fenris climbed to his feet and Anders could see the tenting of his breeches. His hand reached out to touch, but Fenris took a step back.

“Do you want it, Anders? Then you’ll have to earn it?” Fenris chided. The wicked smile on his lips was new to see, and Anders’ cock twitched in appreciation. Fenris beckon to Anders with a finger. “Come and get it—with your mouth only.”

Maker, yes! Anything to touch what Anders had only felt as they had lay in each other’s arms each night. He whipped his tunic off and then his boots, each item thrown behind him to land where they may. Fenris didn’t stop him as his hands went to the ties of his breeches, his fingers almost fumbling with the laces in his excitement and haste. He could feel Fenris’ hot gaze on him as he slid his breeches and smalls off as one, his erection springing free.

His hair fell around his face as he crawled to Fenris on hands and knees, his cock swaying as he came closer, the tip leaking small droplets on the old and frayed rug. He reached Fenris and his eyes flicked up, looking up the length of the elf. Fenris lifted his tunic and pulled it off, dropping it on the floor. Anders sucked in a sharp breath. He had seen Fenris without a tunic before, but this was different, the sexual tension between them almost palatable. It was as if something had been loosed that they had both been keeping tightly to them.  It had always been there, simmering under the surface, but Fenris had been right, he had needed time, and so had Anders.

Their time was up.

When they locked eyes, Anders ran his tongue over his teeth. He was gratified when he saw Fenris’ eyes darken.

“You look hungry, Anders,” he said, his voice silk over steel.

Anders shivered. “Very,” he rasped. He nudged at the hard length under Fenris’ breeches with his nose, tracing the outline with his lips, mouthing at it and wetting the dark fabric. He could feel the pulse of Fenris’ heartbeat through the elf’s cock, a harsh rhythm that sent Anders’ erection to twitching in response.

He caught the tie of Fenris’ breeches between his teeth and slowly pulled. The laces unraveled easily--the knot had been simple and a yank was all it had taken. The breeches fell open and slid down Fenris’ slim hips, revealing the sharp lines of tight muscle and bone. Fenris’ erection peeked out, the tip glistening in the firelight.

Anders pressed a soft kiss to the head, his tongue swiping over it and collecting Fenris’ taste. The elf moaned, a drawn out sound that was wrenched from him. Anders liked Fenris like this. He was slowly coming undone, the tight cork he kept on himself slipping free.

Anders liked that he was the one that got to make Fenris react like this, the pupils of his eyes large, swallowing the green, his lips parted on a moan, kiss-swollen and pink.

That Fenris had been the one so far to give demands meant nothing. It was Anders who was in control.

He took the edge of Fenris’ waistband between his teeth and pulled down, sliding first one side and then the other the rest of the way off of the elf’s hips and down his legs, leaving it in a tangle around Fenris’ ankles. He sat back on his heels and ran his eyes over Fenris. He started with the elf’s face, and how his bangs had fallen over his eyes, partially obscuring him as he looked down at Anders. His eyes roamed over the markings on his throat, the lyrium standing out starkly over dark skin. He moved over Fenris’ chest and the well-defined muscles that the lyrium brands traveled over in arcing swirls. The realities of Fenris’ markings were horrifying, but the result was undeniably beautiful.

“You’re beautiful, Fenris,” Anders whispered reverently.

Fenris’ face twisted and he glanced away. “Do not be ridiculous.”

“I’m not,” Anders assured him. “You had to have looked at yourself in the mirror at some point. I’m the lucky man that gets to have you all to himself.” His lips quirked in a crooked grin.

Fenris’ face relaxed. “I look strange,” he still said. “I always will.”

“And I think you would look strange if you appeared any different,” Anders shrugged. “You’re beautiful to me,” he winked.

Fenris gave him a soft smile. “You are so foolish.”

“It’s one of my more endearing qualities. Do you want to see another one?” he asked slyly.

Fingers curled through Anders’ hair, gentle at first before they gripped tight. “Do you even have to ask?” Fenris said.

Anders’ gaze traveled down over Fenris’ tight abdomen and stopped at the hairless juncture between his legs. The lyrium lines swooped around the base of Fenris’ cock, but did not climb up the length. Anders closed his eyes to stop Fenris from seeing his disgust. Danarius would not have wanted to damage certain parts of Fenris if he didn’t have to. Anders knew the lyrium under his skin was painful for the elf, a dull agony that he had lived with since the day that the magister had enacted his gruesome ritual.

Anders promised himself that he would see to looking for a way to ease Fenris’ pain. No one should have to accept something like that.

Pushing those dark thoughts away—they had no place here—Anders opened his eyes. He ducked his head and nosed at Fenris’ balls, inhaling the sharp scent that was thicker there. He kissed first one, then the other. His tongue laved at the sensitive flesh, eliciting a sharp gasp from Fenris, the elf tightening on Anders’ hair. He could feel the tension in Fenris’ fingers, the urge to direct Anders’ head exactly where he wanted him to be.

Anders wanted that too.

“Make me,” Anders murmured. “Make me take it.”

There was a soft caress over Anders’ ear from Fenris’ little finger before his head was sharply jerked back, forcing his head at an almost painful angle.

“Are you sure?” Fenris asked him. The elf’s breath seesawed out of his mouth, and Anders could see the way his pulse leapt in his throat, barely holding himself in check. He needed to know that Anders was sure this was what he wanted.

Anders had never been surer of anything in his life.

“Do it,” Anders groaned. “Give me everything.”

Something snapped in Fenris in that moment. A wicked light entered his eyes, one full of dark promise. Anders shivered to see it, apprehension mingling with excitement. He had told the truth, he wanted it all from Fenris. He wanted him to come undone, he wanted to see the barely leashed desires that Anders knew was there, the edge of danger with brutal love.

He wanted gentle kisses and nails raked down his skin, sharp reminders he wouldn’t heal for days.

Fenris must have seen the truth in Anders’ eyes because he nodded once and then moved his hands through the mage’s hair, rearranging his grip so his palms cradled him on either side of his head, blond strands slipping through his fingers.

He rocked his hips, bumping the head of his cock against Anders’ lips. “Open,” he hissed.

Anders obediently parted his lips. Fenris pushed forward, slipping his cock inside the wet heat of the mage’s mouth. Anders’ tongue flickered over the hard length, moaning at the taste. Fenris didn’t stop, pushing his cock in deeper. It moved over Anders’ gag reflex, and the mage forced himself to relax and accept it. When his nose finally bumped against Fenris’ pelvis he couldn’t breathe. Fenris kept him there, his fingers tight in Anders’ hair.

“Is this what you wanted?” Fenris asked. “To choke on my cock?”

Anders couldn’t answer so he moaned around the stiff flesh. He had known it would be like this. A man like Fenris did everything in is life intensely—the way he fought, the way he spoke, even the way he loved. Anders had craved that intensity for his own. There was no going halfway with Fenris. Either Anders was going to accept everything about him, or not at all. Anders loved that about Fenris, one almost always knew where they stood with him.

The trick was to dissect his responses to things, to move past the prickly exterior to what lay below.

When Fenris pulled back, Anders used the time to take a breath as his tongue moved over the sensitive glans just under the head. He was rewarded with an explosion of flavor dripping on his tongue and Fenris’ groan of approval.

Anders hadn’t wanted Fenris to hold back and the elf had taken him at his word. He fucked Anders’ pliant mouth, holding the mage still with the grip on his head. Anders felt surrounded by the elf and his lust. His ass clenched as he thought about what that thick cock would feel like in his backside, reaming him out and owning it the way that Fenris was with his mouth.

_He’s going to ruin me for any other_ , Anders thought in a daze.

He didn’t care.

Anders was so hard that he knew the slightest touch would set him off. His hands were clenched into fists on his knees as he fought the urge to give himself the final caress that he needed.

Fenris’ breathing had become ragged above him and Anders could feel the way that the elf’s cock had swelled, holding Fenris close to the edge.

_Give it to me_ , Anders thought. _Give me every drop._ As excited as he was, he thought he might be able to come from Fenris’ taste alone.

Fenris had other ideas. He pulled back from Anders’ with a lewd pop, the mage parting his lips and chasing after it.

“Not like this,” Fenris rasped. He let go of Anders and the mage almost fell forward. “On the bed and spread your legs. Show me just where you want me.”

Anders didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled to his feet and onto the bed, the frame creaking under him. He rolled over on his back as Fenris climbed into the bed after him. He had pulled off his breeches and when the two men came together, their lips meeting in a brutal kiss, Anders moaned at the feel of all that bare flesh against his skin. He spread his legs and wrapped them around Fenris’ waist. Fenris’ lyrium brands were like old scars--faintly stiff and raised. They rubbed over Anders’ chest and nipples, maddening him.

Subtle differences... It wasn’t as if he hadn’t felt them before, just as he’d seen Fenris almost completely nude before. It was as if once taciturn permission had been granted, the two men were allowing themselves to feel each other in ways they hadn’t before.

Fenris took Anders’ bottom lip between his teeth, plucking at the reddened skin. Anders rocked his hips in a futile attempt to gain that little bit of friction he needed, but Fenris clamped his hands on Anders’ hips, pinning him to the bed with that same strength he used to effortlessly wield his massive sword.

Anders clawed at Fenris’ back in frustration. “Please,” he groaned. “I need to…”

Fenris chuckled. The sound was wicked and it sent Anders’ cock to flexing. “You do not get to make the demands here. Do you need a reminder?”

“What I need is to come!” Anders cried. The moment the words left his lips, he knew it had been a mistake.

The smile that Fenris gave him was downright feral. He sat back, taking the heat of his body away. Anders made to sit up to follow him, but Fenris pushed him back down with one hand on his chest, holding him there. Reaching next to Anders’ head, Fenris yanked the pillowcase off of the pillow.

“What are you—“ Anders began. He cut himself off with a startled gasp when Fenris straddled him, holding him down so he could lift his hand away. Gripping the pillowcase with his fists, he wrenched the blood red fabric, tearing it into three, ragged pieces.

“Giving you your reminder,” Fenris answered.

A part of Anders clenched in remembered fear as Fenris took first one wrist, then the other and bound it to the slats in the wooden headboard above him. Being bound was something he did not take lightly, it harkened to days spent in captivity, of seeing his mother screaming for him as the Templars dragged him away. But as he watched Fenris make sure that the fabric wouldn’t cut too deeply into his wrists he relaxed. Fenris knew that fear. If there was anyone who wouldn’t hurt him, not if Anders didn’t want him to, it would be the elf. He understood what it was like to have no control over what was done to one’s body.

Anders _had_ asked for this.

He could also stop it at any time.

Fenris draped the last strip of material over Anders’ mouth when he paused. He wanted to be able to hear Anders, to listen to the cries of pleasure that he wrung from him. Instead, he pulled it over the mage’s throat, tying it in a small knot. The red from the fabric stood out against Anders’ pale skin. Fenris leaned down and placed a kiss over the makeshift collar. Neither one of them needed a visible sign that Anders was his—the mage already had one, etched into his skin by his own hand. Fenris’ fingers caressed down Anders’ side and moved over his hip to the raised mass of scar tissue. He had bled himself to prove that he was so much more than his mistakes. No matter what Anders said, Fenris would always be culpable in that.

With one last kiss over Anders’ franticly beating heart, the rhythm of life under his lips, Fenris moved off of him and padded softly over to the dresser across the room. He opened a drawer and rummaged inside until he found the vial he was looking for.

Anders’ eyes were on him, tracking his every movement. Fenris stopped next to the bed and looked down at the mage, the way his erection was leaking over his belly, pooling arousal, shiny and slick on his skin, how Anders still had his legs spread, bent at the knees.

Then he met the mage’s eyes, so trusting of Fenris at this moment. This Anders knew Fenris, but he had no memory of the things Fenris had said and done to him over the years. Fenris’ heart seized at the thought. Would he still feel this way about him if Anders’ ever remembered?

But that Anders had loved Fenris as well, forcing the elf to see who he really was.

Fenris swallowed. “I love you,” he said, his voice thick.

Anders’ lips quirked up in a soft grin. “Love you too.” He might have thought that he hadn’t needed to hear the words from Fenris, but once he had, he realized just how much he had craved it, just as he had craved the elf’s touch.

The bed dipped as Fenris climbed back in, his lithe frame almost graceful. Anders didn’t think he would ever get tired of watching Fenris, his every movement fluid. Anders’ breathing hitched as Fenris slipped his arms under the mage’s legs, pulling them up to rest on his shoulders. He pulled the cork of the vial free and tipped the contents over two fingers.

“Where did you get that?” Anders asked. The smell of elfroot permeated the air.

“Thanks to your work in the infirmary, there were copious amounts of elfroot extract in the storeroom,” Fenris replied, unrepentant. “It was a simple matter to take the key from you while you were sleeping. I returned it before you awoke.”

“So sure that we were going to do this,” Anders remarked with a wide grin.

Fenris gave him a reproving look and Anders laughed. “All right, so I _had_ asked you for this.” He sucked in a sharp breath and the smile slipped off his face when he felt the first touch of Fenris’ slick fingers against his entrance. He lifted his hips and relaxed at the initial intrusion, his teeth gnawing on his lower lip. Arching his back, his pulled against his bonds, cursing under his breath at the first brush against that spot within him.

“Fuck… Fuck, yes!” His thighs shook as a second finger joined it, writhing against his restraints with each brush over his prostate.

“Maker, fuck me,” Anders pleaded, all sense of control gone. “Give me your cock, please. Give it—fuck-- to me.”

When Fenris replaced his fingers with his slick cock, Anders thought that the only thing holding him back from climax was the need to feel Fenris fully inside him, pounding away, pushing the mage higher with each stroke. He breathed shallowly through his nose, his eyes fixed on the ceiling above him as he tried to back away from the edge that he had been teetering on since the moment Fenris had told him to use only his mouth. From those first dark words, there had been no going back for Anders. He was a willing participant where Fenris wished to lead him.

When Fenris was fully seated to the hilt, Anders clenched his ass around the cock inside him, provoking a moan from the elf. He dropped his eyes back down as Fenris fell forward, bracing himself on his forearms. Fenris’ abdomen brushed against Anders’ neglected cock, causing the breath to stutter in his throat.

With the first pull back and then hard thrust, the breath left Anders completely, taken with a drawn out groan of pleasure.

Fenris set a harsh rhythm, dragging his cock out before pushing back in again with a snap of his hips. Anders was bent almost in half and a part of him knew that his body was going to be angry for the treatment.

But that would be later—much later.

Now there was only Fenris inside him and above him, his lips on Anders’ throat over the fraying fabric, his teeth scrapping over his skin. Now there was only being tethered to the world by his wrists and Fenris’ weight, the sound of their panting breath and the slap of skin on skin.

“Maker,” Anders chanted brokenly. It was intermingled with Fenris’ name, spurring the elf on. “Not going to last,” he rasped out.

“Then do not,” Fenris groaned. The elf’s thrusts had become shallower as he fought off his climax. With Anders’ clenching heat around him and the way that the mage gasped with each thrust, Fenris would not be able to last as long as he had wanted. Anders arched his back, impossibly high, and came with a shout, his cum spurting warm and wet between them. With a few more thrusts, Fenris finally allowed himself to join him, claiming Anders’ lips in an uncoordinated kiss as he gasped out the mage’s name.

The kiss slowed, becoming something a bit sweeter, gentle. Fenris pulled back just far enough to look at Anders, his thumbs caressing over the mage’s jaw, feeling the rasp of stubble against his calloused fingers.

“Don’t die on me,” Anders finally said, his voice hoarse.

“You will not get rid of me that easily,” Fenris promised.


	12. Chapter 12

“Join us, brothers and sisters. Join us in the shadows where we stand vigilant.” Aedan’s voice echoed almost too loudly in the main hall of the keep. It had been cleared of everyone except for a select few. He stood in front of Fenris, his hands clasped around a large goblet filled with blood and magic. Almost absently, Anders wondered if the Joining ritual was a form of blood magic and if the Chantry knew about it.

Anders’ heart hammered in his chest, a thudding staccato that filled his ears, drowning out the sound of Aedan’s voice. He stood behind the commander, Zevran by his side. When Fenris reached out to take the goblet, there was a flash of deep red around his wrist. The elf had unwound the strip of fabric from Anders’ throat and wrapped it around his wrist, his eyes on the mage as he had tied it with the aid of his teeth.

Anders had almost begged him then. He had almost fallen to his knees and clutched at Fenris, pleading with him not to risk himself.

He hadn’t, though.

Anders smoothed his hands down his newly given Grey Warden robes--anything to help with the anxiousness that clawed at him. As Fenris tipped the goblet to his lips, Anders felt a hand on his arm—he hadn’t even realized that he had taken a step forward.

It was agonizingly slow, the movement of Fenris’ throat as he swallowed the concoction, sealing his fate. Aedan plucked the goblet from the elf’s fingers and an oppressive silence fell over the hall. Anders’ hands shook uncontrollably, a trembling that traveled up his arms.

They waited.

Anders thought he was going to scream in order to let loose the horror welling up inside him.

But Fenris did it for him.

The elf’s eyes rolled and he tipped his head back, his mouth opening on one of the most terrifying screams that Anders had ever heard. It came from deep within Fenris, the sound of death, agony, and fear. Anders ripped his arm free from Zevran’s grasp, the blond elf shouting at him to stop.

His innate sense had told him what was coming before Anders had realized what was happening.

He and Aedan had reached Fenris at the same time when it happened. Fenris had no air left with which to scream, the sounds from his throat strangled rasps. Power exploded out of him, bright blue with the tang of the Fade. It slammed into Aedan and Anders, sending them flying across the hall over the large fire pit in the center. Aedan crashed into a bookshelf, knocking down tomes, large and small alike, the wood splintering from the force. Anders’ back smacked into a pillar, one of several massive columns that ringed the hall, and he felt his staff snap from the impact, shards of wood driving into his skin. The back of his head cracked against the stone and for a moment all he knew was pain and his lungs’ need for air that had been jolted out of him.

Still Fenris kept screaming, soundless and terrifying.

Anders pushed himself to his feet, weaving in place. His body shot through with pain at the movement and he moaned. Across the hall, Zevran stood his ground before Fenris, his fingers twitching for his daggers.

“No!” Anders cried. With strength he no longer had, he rushed over to the two elves. He could hear the strike of boot steps behind him, and he knew that Aedan was following.

Zevran abruptly turned in one fluid movement, his daggers appearing in his hands. He flicked the tips in Aedan and Anders’ direction. “No closer, yes? Do not make me hurt either one of you. It would not be wise to touch him right now. There is nothing any of us can do.”

“You knew this would happen! I heard you,” Anders shouted. Behind Zevran, Fenris’ body was locked in a rictus of pain, his back arched, his hands curled into claws that shook. Anders could see tendons that stood out starkly in Fenris’ throat. The light from his brands grew and almost enveloped him completely, obscuring the elf from them in searing brightness. Anders’ eyes watered as he forced himself to look.

“I had my suspicions, yes? Nothing more. Velanna also had her concerns and when she brought them to Aedan the other day—“

“You knew!” Anders snarled at Aedan. He didn’t take his eyes off of Fenris. “What’s happening to him!” he took a step forward, but Zevran pressed the tip of a dagger to his chest. The fabric of his robes parted easily against the razor sharpness and he felt a slight sting of cut flesh.

“She thought the lyrium in him might react strongly to the Joining,” Aedan explained. To his credit, he sounded apologetic.

Anders didn’t care. “You never should have let him do it! Damn you, Aedan. I thought better of you than this!” His voice grew deeper on the last word, echoing in his throat and throughout the hall. Rage swept over him a radiating blue that rose in answer to Fenris’ pain.

_When the qunari threw the spear, Anders was too late to yell Fenris’ name. He watched in horror as the weapon’s head pierced through Fenris’ side. Anders ran through the courtyard in Hightown. There was qunari, Carta, and chaos all around him, the sounds of battle and screaming an almost constant din._

_As his boots ate up the length between them, anger had him gritting his teeth. Fenris had staggered back, his sword falling from lax fingers. Blood dripped down the shaft, pooling around the elf’s feet. Anders could feel Justice forcing his will on him in answer to the mage’s rage. The qunari advanced on Fenris, a sword raised and prepared to strike at the wounded elf. Fire erupted over Anders’ hands, blue flames that flickered with righteous fury._

_“You cannot have him!”  The fireball that Anders threw at the qunari was formed from his hate. Not another thing was going to be taken from him, not another person was going to die that he cared about._

_Never again._

_The qunari’s cries of agony rang in Anders’ ears long after he was a smoking ruin._

Pain sliced through Anders’ temples as cracks that seeped an iridescent blue split the skin on his face. He could see nothing but blood spreading over smooth stone, hear nothing but Fenris’ initial cry of shock and pain.

When hands touched him, Anders whirled on his assailant. “You cannot have him!” Blue fire burst to life on his hands and raced up his arms with flames that did not burn him. He was dimly aware of Aedan’s startled face settling into grim determination.

“Anders. Fenris is going to need you. You need to think,” Aedan said calmly. Later Anders would realize what it took for Aedan to project that calm. Diplomacy was not a strong point with him and had gotten him in trouble on more than one occasion. He preferred straight talk to dancing around a subject, action to inaction.

“Think?” Anders boomed. “You let him attempt the Joining when you knew what would happen!” Blood on the stone, the qunari with his blade raised. So much anger... Lost... He would not lose him. This was Anders’ doing. He had been too slow to prevent Fenris from being injured, the elf almost dying right there in his arms, Anders’ hands slick with his blood. He had been selfish in not seeing the danger to Karl and what communicating with Anders would do to him. He had been selfish in allowing Fenris to come to the Vigil with him, afraid to face his former commander alone.

Anders’ mind tripped back and forth--blood on his fingers, blood on his robes, the dagger in his hand. They took and took, Templars and Grey Wardens alike, without any regard for anyone else.

His mind stuttered over that last thought. No! The Grey Wardens were not like the Templars. They had sheltered him over and over again, giving him a taste of the kind of freedom he had always wanted. Anders cried out and clutched his head in his hands, as if he could forcibly separate himself from the memories and the rage they brought.

Maybe he could.

Anders dropped, his knees striking painfully on the floor. He squeezed his eyes shut as he dug his nails into his scalp, little pinpricks of pain. They were _his_ memories, _his_ feelings, and he could control them. Anders had always feared losing himself if he was ever made Tranquil, he would not lose himself to this either.

What had Fenris told him? That Anders had to make the choice to give himself up to the anger. He sucked in a shuddering breath and forced a single thought in his chaotic mind, focusing on it until it became the port in the storm.

Fenris needed him.

**

Fenris was fracturing, his blood turned to liquid fire that raced with each frantic beat of his heart. The lyrium in his skin was turning him inside out, exposing raw nerves that were raked each time he took a shuddering breath.

He saw the lies and the gold of the city bleed to black.

He heard the screams of true horror as creatures his mind could not even begin to contend with flashed through his not-memories.

Then came the clawing and scraping over his psyche. It was a primal urge to listen to the whispers that spoke in a language he did not know, but understood regardless.

He was drowning in corruption. It filled his mouth so he couldn’t speak, his ears so he could no longer hear, and his nose so that he could no longer breathe. Old god. New god. It wanted. It slept. It devoured.

It _called_.

It called and his brothers and sisters were answering, scrabbling in the deep--digging, digging, digging. They had no purpose other than to obey the terrible song. He could feel the others under his feet, tunneling like ants, spreading over the whole of Thedas. Far and wide they dug, and always deep, further than even the dwarves had dared to go. They knew Thedas better than those above, the ones they would destroy as recompense for what had been done.

Fenris wanted to feel flesh between his teeth, the metallic tang of blood on his tongue.

And always the song while his lyrium burned.

Parts of him were slipping away. There was no need for _I_ anymore. There was only the we. In the we there was a freedom—freedom of thought, of fear. It was heady, that loss of self. Nothing mattered but the needs of the whole.

The whole had only one purpose.

Find the song.

A new voice entered his consciousness, drifting through the corruption in his ears. It seemed alien and faraway. But Fenris listened to the vaguely familiar strains, reaching out for anything other than the promise of oblivion on the song.

“…damn it, Fenris!”

“…don’t know… I think…”

“…on me, you fucking elf!”

That last voice was the lifeline that Fenris took a hold of. He used it as a way to climb out of the pit, the corruption sucking at him, unwilling to let him go of the mire. Bits of the corruption clung to him as he pulled himself free, seeping into his body and mind, small larva that would bide their time and one day grow so big that the song could not be ignored.

Fenris’ eyes snapped open and he drew in a shuddering breath. The first thing he was aware of was that although his mind had cleared, he could still feel a faint presence in the back of it, nudging at him.

The second was that the presence was two of the three people leaning over him, his head in Anders’ lap.

“Oh, thank the Maker!” Anders cried. He crushed Fenris to him and buried his face in the elf’s hair. Fenris’ whole body ached, his muscles stiff and sore, and he winced.

“Welcome, Warden Fenris,” Aedan said. He gave the elf a huge, toothy grin. “Scared us there for a moment. How do you feel?”

Disoriented, Fenris said the first words to pop into his mind. “I am starving.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Six Months Later**

Anders came apart with a shout, his teeth sinking into Fenris’ shoulder as the elf shuddered above him. Their lips met in a languid kiss as Fenris lowered his weight on Anders’ in a tangle of limbs, the sweat rapidly drying on their skin. Fenris’ fingers caressed down Anders’ thigh, tripping over the ridges of scar tissue that would never fade.

In a few hours, Fenris and Anders were to go with Nathaniel and Sigrun into the Deep Roads. There had been some sightings of darkspawn making forays to the surface, and Aedan wanted to know if there was any other unusual activity. It would be a simple task—they would not be going to where they had no maps, the Deep Roads under Amaranthine had been well documented.

They still had time before they had to prepare to leave.

Since Fenris’ Joining, Anders had had four incidents of losing control. Each time had been accompanied by flashes of memory that he could never quite grasp and warped emotions. He was working with Aedan and Velanna to try and find a balance. They were seeking a way for Anders to call up that part of him when needed, and how to deal with the memories when they came.

It was slow going, but they had made a little progress.

The underlining theme in helping Anders to come back to himself had been Fenris. He was the connection between the past and the present, and helped Anders to come back to the here and now. It wasn’t perfect, but it was what worked for the moment.

“Can’t we stay just hide in bed and refuse to come out?” Anders whispered against Fenris’ lips.

The elf gave him a slow grin. “I do not think that would work. Aedan would just break down the door and drag us out.”

Anders snorted. “I’d like to see him try to drag you anywhere, love.”

“Then you can stay in bed, I am going.” Fenris pressed a quick kiss to the tip of Anders’ nose and climbed off of him, lowering Anders’ legs to the bed.

Stretching, Anders rolled over on his stomach and wrinkled his nose in disgust at the congealing mess he had sprawled in. He watched as Fenris walked over to the washbasin, admiring the lean lines of the elf’s backside. “You know, Aedan mentioned the other day about us going to Kirkwall. He needs Wardens there that know the place.”

The only outward sign that Fenris had heard him was the slight stiffening of his shoulders. The elf turned and padded back to the bed with a wet linen cloth in his hands. Anders rolled back over and Fenris wiped him down, cleaning off the mess on his stomach and chest, running the cloth between his legs.

“Do you wish to go back there? It was not safe for you,” Fenris murmured, unwilling to meet Anders’ eyes.

“I don’t think we’ll have a choice, love.” Anders shoved his hands under his head and stared at the ceiling. “You know the city. You have contacts there. He seemed very interested in what I might know about the Deep Roads expedition that Hawke had taken. I had to tell him that I didn’t know a damned thing and you were the one he should be talking to.” Anders lowered his eyes and watched as Fenris tossed the cloth with practiced precision towards the washbasin, the linen landing on the edge of the bowl.

“He did ask me. He asked me a month ago and I told him everything I knew,” Fenris admitted. “I told him I was not going back there.”

That caught Anders attention and he sat up. “You what? Why?” He reached out and brushed Fenris’ bangs from his eyes, forcing the elf to look at him.

“Because it is not safe there for you and I will not leave you here alone, not as you are.” Fenris’ green eyes hardened and Anders inwardly groaned. He knew that look. When Fenris got his back up, there was little that could move him.

“Not as I am,” Anders mimicked, doing a poor imitation of Fenris’ voice. “I’m fine. Well,” he amended, “as fine as I’m going to be. Aedan made it sound important.”

“Aedan makes a lot of things sound important, that does not make it so,” Fenris shot back. “I am surprised you would take his side after what he—“

Anders held up his hand to cut Fenris off. “Nope! Whether or not I’m still a bit angry at him is beside the point. Maker, Hawke had found red lyrium. No one has ever heard of it before, not in any recorded history that we know. Even _I_ can see that it needs to be followed up on.”

Fenris’ lips twisted in anger. “And what do you think will happen to you while we are there in the very place where you and Justice had spent years together? Four times I have had to calm you down before you hurt someone since my Joining. Why chance going to a place where those memories were formed? I will not do it, Anders.”

Blowing out a breath in frustration, Anders shrugged. “If you know one thing about me it’s that I don’t like being told I can’t do something.” He laughed when Fenris raised an eyebrow. “I mean out of the bedchamber. Besides, he might send someone else. Maybe we can get him to convince the Warden-Commander of Ansburg to make the trek to Kirkwall. They might not know the city, but they’re closer.”

Anders leaned forward and placed a kiss on Fenris’ snarling lips. “Let’s not fight, love. Save it for the darkspawn we’re going to inevitably run into.”

Fenris’ body relaxed and his eyes softened. “I am still not used to this.”

“What?” Anders laughed. “Taking orders from someone? I tried to tell you, Aedan might seem like he isn’t going to adhere to the chain of command, but he means business.”

“No.” Fenris shook his head and slipped his arms around Anders’ waist, tugging the mage closer. “Caring so much about someone that you would do anything to keep them safe.”

“Caring?” Anders asked softly.

Fenris chuckled. “Loving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! I have plans in the future for a sequel once I have a few other stories finished with the boys going back to Kirkwall.
> 
> I want to thank everyone that has commented and given kudos. heck! I want to thank everyone that read this!
> 
> Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! 
> 
> And a big THANK YOU to Cypheroftyr for letting me take her plot bunny of Anders losing his memory and running with it.


End file.
